THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Frank  Miller 


THE  VOICE  OF  RUSSIA 


JESSIE  M.  SCHWARTZ,  SHORTLY  BEFORE  HER  DEATH 


THE  VOICE  OF  RUSSIA 


BY 

M.   ALEXANDER   SCHWARTZ 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


f\  C/ 


Copyright,  1921, 
By  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Company 


All  Rights  Reserved 


FEINTED  IN  THE  UNITS!) 
STATES  OF  AMERICA 


FOREWORD 

1Y/TR.  M.  A.  SCHWARTZ,  an  American 
•*••••  Socialist  from  San  Francisco,  an  active 
member  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  an  organizer  for  the  Amalgamated  Street 
Railways  of  America,  went  to  Bolshevist  Rus- 
sia on  April  24,  1920,  together  with  his  wife, 
a  prominent  Socialist  worker,  member  of  the 
Executive  Board  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  the 
State  of  California,  known  nnder  the  name  of 
Jessie  M.  Molle. 

Both  Mr.  Schwartz  and  his  wife  went  to  Rus- 
sia as  sympathizers  with  Bolshevism.  They 
spent  about  seven  months  in  Rnssia  and 
studied  closely  the  conditions  not  only  in  Mos- 
cow and  Petrograd,  but  also  Tambov,  Tula, 
Nizhni-Novgorod,  Kazan,  Samara  and  many 
other  important  centers.  As  the  result  of 
their  close  study  of  the  Bolshevist  regime, 
and  after  many  uncensored  conversations  with 
Russian  workingmen  and  peasants,  they  came 


vi  FOREWORD 

to  the  conclusion  that  the  Bolshevist  rule  whicH 
they  thought  to  be  a  realization  of  Socialism, 
the  highest  state  of  democracy,  is  in  reality 
the  worst  tyranny  possible.  They  did  not 
hesitate  to  express  their  views  frankly  to  the 
Bolshevist  leaders  and  to  the  Second  Congress 
of  the  Third  International,  and  were  arrested 
by  the  famous  "Extraordinary  Commission" 
and  thrown  into  prison.  They  spent  four 
months  in  the  Bolshevist  prison  under  most 
terrible  conditions.  Mrs.  Schwartz  died  as 
the  result  of  these  experiences.  Mr.  Schwartz 
survived  them  and  has  undertaken  the  task 
of  acquainting  the  American  people  with  the 
actual  conditions  in  Bolshevist  Russia. 

Mr.  Schwartz  was  born  in  Odessa,  Southern 
Russia,  near  the  Black  Sea,  in  1870.  After 
living  thirty-five  years  in  Russia,  he  came  to 
this  country  in  1906.  While  in  this  country 
he  participated  actively  in  the  Labor  and  the 
Socialist  movements. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    WE  Go  TO  FREE  RUSSIA 1 

II.     PETROGRAD  AND  EMMA  GOLDMAN  ...     16 

III.  Moscow  REVISITED 34 

IV.  WORTHLESS  MONEY  AND  HUMAN 

SUFFERING 58 

V.  SOLDIERS  OF  THE  RED  ARMY     ....  79 

VI.  COMMUNISM  ALONG  THE  VOLGA   ...  97 

VII.  WE  VISIT  TULA  AND  TOLSTOI'S  HOME  .      .  121 

VIII.  LIFE  IN  Moscow 143 

IX.     THE  THIRD  INTERNATIONAL — WE  ARE 

ARRESTED 157 

X.    PRISON  LIFE 180 

XI.    FREEDOM — THE  FINAL  SACRIFICE  .  .  202 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

JESSIE  M.  SCHWARTZ,  SHOBTLY  BEFORE  HER  DEATH 

Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

M.  ALEXANDER  SCHWARTZ 20 

PAUL  LEVI,  A  GERMAN  DELEGATE  AND  A  MEMBER 
OF  THE  REICHSTAG 52 

NIKOLAI  LENIN,  HEAD  OF  THE  SOVIET  GOVERN- 
MENT        52 

TYPES  OF  SOAP  USED    IN    RUSSIA,  ILLUSTRATING 
CLASS  DISTINCTIONS 68 

LUNACHARSKY,  MINISTER  OF  EDUCATION  .      .      .   124 

G.  ZINOVIEV,  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  EXECUTIVE  COM- 
MITTEE OF  THE  COMMUNIST  INTERNATIONALE  .  124 

BELA  KUN,  ONCE  DICTATOR  OF  THE  HUNGARIAN 
GOVERNMENT 140 

MADAME  BALABANOVA,   ORATOR  OF  THE    PROPA- 
GANDA BUREAU,  OUR  GUIDE  ON  THE  VOLGA  .     .  140 

PETROGRAD.    THE  GREAT  SOVIET  PAGEANT  ON  THE 
STEPS  OF  THE  OLD  EXCHANGE,  JULY  19,  1920  .  164 

SYLVIA  PANKHURST,  THE  FAMOUS  ENGLISH  SUF- 
FRAGIST, A  DELEGATE  TO  THE  CONGRESS   .       .       .    204 

JOHN  REED  AS  HE  APPEARED  TO  A  RUSSIAN  ARTIST  204 

ix 


THE  VOICE  OF  RUSSIA 


THE  VOICE  OF  RUSSIA 

CHAPTER  I 

WE   GO   TO   FREE   RUSSIA 

IT  is  my  hope  in  publishing  this  book  that  I 
may  be  able  to  give  the  world,  and  espe- 
cially the  people  of  the  United  States,  a  vivid 
impression  of  the  harsh  realities  of  life  in 
Soviet  Russia  today.  It  is  inconceivable  that 
the  people  of  this  fortunate  land  will  be  unable 
to  bring  some  relief  to  the  suffering  millions  of 
what  was  once  a  great  and  powerful  nation. 
Since  I  am  not  a  writer  by  profession,  I  must 
tell  my  story  as  best  I  can,  but  if  in  my  halting 
phrases  you  are  able  to  understand  the  depths 
into  which  Russia  has  fallen,  I  will  consider 
that  my  task  has  been  sufficiently  rewarded. 

I  am  a  Russian  by  birth,  as  were  my  father 
and  forefathers ;  I  was  educated  in  Russia  and 
lived  there  until  I  was  thirty-five  years  of  age. 
Until  my  eighteenth  year  I  lived  in  Odessa, 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  city  of  Russia, 

l 


2  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

where  I  was  born  in  1870,  graduating  from  one 
of  the  city  high  schools,  or  gymnazia.  My 
memories  of  the  old  vanished  Russia  are  keen 
enough,  and  include  practically  every  city  of 
importance  in  the  country.  After  I  left  Odes- 
sa, I  was  a  commercial  traveler  for  a  wholesale 
jewelry  factory  for  three  years,  and  traveled 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land, 
from  Siberia  to  the  Baltic,  and  came  into  con- 
tact with  every  type  of  Russian,  with  the  muz- 
hik as  well  as  the  tradesmen  of  the  towns. 

When  I  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one,  I 
was  forced  to  join  the  army,  as  in  Russia 
there  was  compulsory  military  service.  I  did 
not  enter  the  army  willingly,  though  my  rea- 
son was  not  that  of  most  of  the  young  con- 
scripts of  my  day,  for  I  came  from  a  military 
caste,  my  father  and  my  grandfather  having 
been  soldiers  of  the  empire.  My  father  served 
under  Alexander  the  Second  as  an  officer,  but 
in  1877,  impressed  by  the  suffering  caused 
by  the  Turkish-Russian  war,  he  took  an  active 
part  in  the  Nihilist  movement,  and  when  the 
Russian  Government  discovered  this  through 
their  spies,  he  was  secretly  arrested  and  shot. 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  3 

I  was  then  too  young  to  realize  the  signifi- 
cance of  this,  but  when  I  grew  older  my 
mother  told  me  one  day  what  had  been  his 
fate. 

Naturally,  when  I  joined  the  army  myself, 
I  was  not  over-loyal,  knowing  as  I  did,  that  I 
had  become  a  part  of  the  great  machine  that 
had  killed  my  father.  It  was  not  long  before 
the  Nihilists  seized  upon  me  as  a  convert, 
although  I  understood  very  little  of  the  aims 
of  their  mysterious  organization.  At  first, 
I  was  anxious  to  learn  and  I  absorbed  their 
doctrines  readily  enough,  with  the  result  that 
I  had  soon  become  an  active  Nihilist  myself. 
In  1891,  when  my  turn  of  compulsory  military 
service  had  been  completed,  I  re-enlisted, 
partly  because  I  liked  the  life,  and  because  as 
a  soldier  I  could  best  serve  the  cause  to  which 
I  was  devoted.  For  fourteen  years  I  occupied 
different  positions  under  the  Eussian  Govern- 
ment, but  my  Nihilistic  activities  were  event- 
ually discovered,  and  I  was  arrested  one  day 
in  Petrograd  and  banished  to  Siberia. 

From  the  first  I  determined  to  escape,  and 
aided  by  the  underground  system  that  took 


4  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

so  many  political  prisoners  out  of  Siberia,  I 
made  my  way  in  disguise  and  with  a  great 
deal  of  hardship,  back  to  European  Russia 
and  Moscow.  There  I  purchased  a  passport 
under  another  name,  for  at  that  time  the  sale 
of  false  passports  was  a  regular  business,  and 
with  it  I  managed  to  make  my  way  through 
the  Prussian  border  and  eventually  to  the 
United  States  by  way  of  Hamburg  and  New 
York.  The  secret  society  of  which  I  was  a 
member  gave  me  money  for  the  trip  out  of 
their  funds  which  had  been,  secured  for  propa- 
ganda. Curiously  enough,  the  money  for  the 
escape  of  political  prisoners  and  for  propa- 
ganda abroad  was  supplied  to  most  of  these 
societies  by  wealthy  Russians  who  believed 
in  a  change  of  government  and  in  revolution, 
but  were  unwilling  to  take  any  active  part  in 
the  movement. 

In  the  officers'  training  school  in  the  old 
days,  I  had  listened  to  talks  by  the  officers  of 
the  General  Staff,  and  was  particularly  im- 
pressed by  their  description  of  life  in  Cali- 
fornia. So  I  went  West  immediately  upon 
my  arrival  in  America  and  secured  work  on 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  5 

the  street  railway  system  of  San  Francisco. 
I  soon  became  active  in  the  Labor  movement 
as  an  organizer  for  the  Amalgamated  Street 
Eailways  of  the  United  States,  of  which  W. 
Mahon  is  the  National  President.  I  was  a 
member  of  Division  No.  192  of  the  Street  Car 
Men's  Union  in  Oakland. 

When  war  broke  out  in  1914,  I  left  the 
organization  and  spoke  to  workmen's  gather- 
ings throughout  the  United  States.  To  thou- 
sands of  workmen  I  told  the  story  of  the 
despotism  of  the  Czar's  regime.  But  when 
the  revolution  broke  out  in  that  country  and 
Nicholas  the  Second  was  displaced  by  Ker- 
ensky,  I  became  a  strong  supporter  of  the 
new  government,  and  from  my  hatred  of  the 
old  order  of  things,  put  my  whole  heart  and 
soul  into  the  effort  to  get  the  support  of  the 
people  of  this  country  for  the  new  Socialist 
Government  of  Eussia.  "When  the  Bolshevists 
came  into  power  I  left  my  platform  work, 
went  West  again,  and  together  with  my  wife, 
worked  there  for  the  Socialist  movement. 

My  wife,  Jessie  Molle,  was  an  American, 
born  in  Portage,  Wisconsin,  and  a  graduate 


6  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

of  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  She  became 
interested  in  Socialism  while  she  was  in  col- 
lege, and  would  often  address  meetings  in 
Chicago.  She  joined  the  Socialist  Party  in 
1892  and  became  very  active  in  the  move- 
ment, particularly  in  California,  where  she 
was  for  many  years  on  the  State  Executive 
Board.  My  wife  also  worked  for  the  Nation- 
alist Socialist  Party  at  their  headquarters  in 
Chicago  under  Otto  Brandstadter,  and  became 
a  well-known  speaker,  lecturing  for  the  party 
and  collecting  money  for  it,  from  San  Fran- 
cisco to  New  York. 

Jessie  Schwartz  gave  her  whole  life  to  the 
cause  in  which  she  believed,  and  in  the  end 
she  died  for  that  cause,  in  Reval,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Russia,  thousands  of  miles  from  her 
home  and  from  her  children,  another  martyr 
to  the  despotism  that  has  developed  there 
under  the  name  of  the  government  of  the 
working  people.  It  is  the  story  of  her  hero- 
ism and  of  her  suffering  that  I  wish  to  tell 
you. 

In  1919,  the  convention  of  the  Socialists  of 
the  United  States  at  Chicago  was  stampeded 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  7 

and  split,  and  there  were  thus  founded  another 
party,  commonly  known  as  the  Communist 
Party,  which  the  late  John  Eeed  and  many 
older  and  more  prominent  Socialists  joined. 
The  newly  made  Communists  returned  to  their 
respective  states  and  succeeded  in  capturing 
for  a  time  the  property,  the  press  and  the 
funds  of  the  Socialist  organization.  My  wife, 
unwilling  to  change  her  convictions,  fought 
bitterly  against  them,  but  I  myself  was  in 
favor  of  the  ideals  of  Communism,  endorsing 
the  action  of  the  new  Communist  Party.  It 
was  finally  decided  that  the  Socialist  Party, 
as  a  whole,  would  affiliate  with  the  Third  In- 
ternational of  Russia,  and  the  decision  to  do 
so  was  carried  by  a  substantial  majority. 

For  the  first  time  in  our  married  life,  my 
wife  and  I  found  that  we  disagreed  with  each 
other  fundamentally.  Finally,  my  wife,  too, 
decided  to  give  up  her  work  with  the  Socialist 
Party,  for  which  she  had  labored  for  over 
eighteen  years,  and  when  I  asked  her  why 
she  was  doing  this,  she  said,  "  Because  the 
Socialist  Party  in  America  does  not  under- 
stand Bolshevism."  Many  days  and  nights 


8  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

we  talked  together  about  this  Socialism  for 
which  we  had  both  worked  so  long  in  America 
and  this  new  sort  of  Socialism  in  Russia,  of 
which  we  read  so  many  contradictory  reports. 
It  was  becoming  so  big  a  problem  in  our  lives, 
that  I  finally  proposed  to  her  that  we  should 
go  to  Eussia  together  to  find  out  what  "Com- 
munism" might  mean  to  the  working  people 
of  the  world.  "We  decided  to  obtain  the  ap- 
proval and  endorsement  of  the  Socialist  Party 
for  our  project,  since  our  whole  object  in 
going  would  be  to  satisfy  ourselves  as  to  the 
truth  and  report  it  to  our  own  people  on  our 
return.  Leaving  our  home  in  California,  we 
went  to  the  National  Headquarters  in  Chicago, 
where  the  leaders  of  the  Party  told  us  that 
it  would  be  an  immense  help  to  them  if  we 
should  go,  although  they  had  no  funds  avail- 
able for  sending  us.  We  were  given  creden- 
tials, letters  and  resolutions  from  the  Social- 
ists of  America,  besides  personal  letters  to 
Tchicherin,  Zinoviev  and  Lenin. 

"We  applied  for  passports  for  Europe,  with- 
out stating  that  our  ultimate  aim  was  Russia, 
and  on  April  24,  1920,  we  left  on  the  Maure- 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  9 

tania.  To  us  it  seemed  the  beginning  of  a 
pilgrimage.  As  the  Mohammedan  goes  to 
Mecca,  so  we  turned  our  faces  toward  this 
new  government,  founded,  as  we  thought,  for 
the  interests  of  the  common  working  man  for 
whom  we  had  both  labored  for  so  long.  Per- 
haps the  reader  will  appreciate  how  much  it 
meant  to  us,  when  I  say  that  for  the  trip  I 
had  drawn  out  of  the  bank  practically  all  of 
the  savings  that  we  had  reserved  for  our  old 
age — and  I  was  then  fifty-one  and  my  wife 
was  not  far  behind.  It  is  difficult  for  me  to 
describe  my  wife's  delight  when  she  found 
herself  actually  on  the  way.  She  told  me  later 
that  these  were  the  happiest  days  of  her  life, 
as  they  were  indeed  of  mine.  I  am  sure  that 
she  felt  that  there  was  something  sacred  to 
her  in  this  first  voyage  of  hers  across  the 
Atlantic. 

On  our  arrival  in  London,  we  saw  the  lead- 
ers of  the  English  Socialist  Party  and  the 
trades  unions,  and  visited  the  Labor  Council 
in  London,  where  we  addressed  a  meeting  and 
told  our  audience  that  we  were  going  to  Rus- 
sia to  investigate  conditions  under  the  Bol- 


10  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

shevist  Government.  They  approved  of  our 
mission  and  we  were  made  honorary  members 
of  the  British  Labor  Party  and  were  given 
letters  to  the  Russian  Government.  From 
there  we  went  to  Germany,  through  Holland, 
and  managed  to  hide  the  letters  relating  to 
our  visit  to  Russia  when  we  were  searched  on 
the  border.  We  remained  in  Berlin  for  two 
weeks  and  had  an  interview  with  the  President, 
Herr  Ebert,  and  with  General  Noske.  We 
also  attended  the  Reichstag  and  visited  the 
headquarters  of  the  Labor  Unions  and  the 
Communist  groups  centered  in  Berlin,  and 
were  given  more  letters  to  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment. 

I  did  not  believe  then  that  there  was  any 
justification  for  the  part  that  General  Noske 
had  taken  in  the  arrest  and  death  of  Lieb- 
knecht.  We  were  invited  to  Madame  Lieb- 
knecht's  house  for  dinner,  where  we  talked 
with  her  until  late  at  night.  It  was  a  sad 
evening.  The  poor  woman  was  pathetically 
shaken  by  the  death  of  her  husband  and  was 
bitter  against  Noske  and  the  other  officials 
who,  she  said,  had  decreed  his  death.  She 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  11 

cried  when  she  said  that  Carl  had  been  killed 
in  cold  blood  and  without  any  justification. 
She  said  that  while  his  enemies  declared  them- 
selves Socialists,  they  were  really  devoted  to 
capitalism,  and  that  her  husband  and  Rosa 
Luxembourg  and  countless  others  had  been 
done  away  with  because  these  Socialists  feared 
that  the  working  people  might  take  possession 
of  the  country  and  establish  a  government  for 
the  people.  Liebknecht's  influence  must  have 
been  tremendous.  She  described  the  great 
meetings  at  which  he  had  presided,  and  said 
that  thousands  had  cheered  him  on  the  streets 
wherever  he  appeared.  She  showed  us  letters 
that  she  had  received,  stating  that  if  she  took 
any  active  part  in  the  threatened  revolution  her 
son  would  have  the  same  fate  as  his  father.  She 
had  decided  to  keep  what  little  life  had  left  her 
and  retire  from  the  movement,  living  quietly 
at  home  and  looking  after  her  children. 

On  the  following  day  I  bought  some  flowers 
and  on  Sunday  we  went  to  the  cemetery  where 
Karl  Liebknecht  and  Eosa  Luxembourg  were 
buried,  in  the  midst  of  other  revolutionists 
who  had  been  killed,  and  we  decorated  all  their 


12  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

graves  in  honor  of  the  two  leaders  of  the 
Communist  cause.  Thirty-two  others,  men 
and  women,  were  buried  in  the  same  spot, 
and  my  poor  wife  cried  bitterly  as  she  put  in 
her  note-book  the  names  of  the  dead,  with 
the  dates  of  their  death. 

The  next  day  we  left  for  Russia.  We  should 
have  traveled  through  Poland,  but  at  that 
moment  Poland  was  at  war  with  Russia,  and 
since  my  sympathies  were  with  the  Bolshevist 
Government,  I  did  not  feel  it  right  to  pay 
500  German  marks  to  the*  Polish  Government 
for  my  vise.  Accordingly,  we  took  the  trip 
by  sea,  traveling  from  Stettin  to  Konigsburg. 
The  boat  was  so  packed  with  passengers,  that 
it  was  impossible  to  find  room  to  sit.  We 
were  both  sick  and  suffered  terribly  during  the 
twenty-four  hours  of  the  trip.  Finally,  after 
much  hardship,  and  after  the  usual  tiresome 
delays  for  innumerable  visits  to  crowded  con- 
sulates, we  arrived  at  Reval. 

The  town  was  packed  with  visitors,  prosper- 
ous traders,  homeless  refugees  and  penniless 
exiles,  and  we  were  unable  to  find  any  rooms. 
Most  of  the  people  were,  like  ourselves,  wait- 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  13 

ing  to  get  into  Kussia;  others  had  fled  from 
there  and  were  just  waiting  and  waiting  for 
whatever  fate  might  have  in  store  for  them  in 
the  future.  Eventually,  we  had  to  find  a  place 
for  ourselves  in  the  already  crowded  railway 
station.  They  are  all  alike — those  stations  of 
Eastern  Europe — packed  with  men,  women  and 
children,  the  crippled,  the  sick,  and  the  well, 
clinging  together  on  the  dirty  floors  as  if  a 
gigantic  bee-hive  had  been  overturned.  But 
at  least  it  was  better  than  the  open  air,  and 
although  still  suffering  from  our  journey,  we 
endured  the  discomforts  and  the  sour  odor  of 
tobacco  and  humanity  as  best  we  might.  The 
next  morning  we  looked  for  rooms  again,  wan- 
dering around  from  one  house  to  another. 
Finally,  we  noticed  an  automobile  which  car- 
ried the  American  flag,  and  found  it  belonged 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  American  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
at  Eeval,  a  Mr.  Gott.  We  told  him  that  we 
were  Americans  and  that  we  had  been  unable 
to  find  quarters.  His  reply  was  very  like  the 
man. 

"Don't  worry,"  he  said,  "I  will  fix  you  up." 
He  certainly  did  so,  for  he  gave  us  one  of 


14  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

the  finest  rooms  that  we  had  during  our  jour- 
ney, and  even  found  food  for  us,  refusing  to 
let  me  pay  him  for  it. 

Esthonia  was  the  first  government  to  recog- 
nize the  Soviet  Government,  and  the  Russian 
Commissars  occupied  a  whole  building  in 
Reval,  which  they  called  the  Hotel  Petrograd. 
I  sent  word  of  our  presence  to  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Bolshevist  Government,  and  finally 
went  to  see  the  Secretary  of  the  Consul.  "We 
showed  him  our  letters  from  the  various  So- 
cialist parties,  and  resolutions  and  other  docu- 
ments that  had  been  given  us  for  the  Russian 
Government,  and  he  asked  us  dozens  of  ques- 
tions which  we  answered  in  an  apparently 
satisfactory  manner.  But  nevertheless  he  told 
us  that  in  spite  of  our  credentials  we  would 
have  to  wait  in  Reval  until  orders  came  from 
the  Commissar  of  Foreign  Affairs  in  Moscow. 
But  he  assured  us  that  this  would  not  take 
very  long,  as  our  papers  were  in  good  order 
and  that  he  had  already  had  word  that  we 
were  on  our  way  into  Russia. 

We  met  a  few  Americans  in  the  same  build- 
ing, also  trying  to  get  permission  to  enter  the 


WE    GO    TO    FREE    RUSSIA  15 

country,  and  a  great  many  motion  picture 
operators.  Two  of  them,  a  Mr.  Estes  and  Mr. 
Frick,  told  me  that  they  had  been  waiting  for 
over  a  month  and  had  about  decided  to  turn 
back  again.  Later  on  I  heard  that  they  had 
finally  made  their  way  over  the  border,  but 
that  they  had  been  arrested  by  the  Extraordi- 
nary Commission  on  the  day  they  went  into 
Moscow,  and  when  I  left  that  city  in  Decem- 
ber, they  were  still  in  prison. 

Eussia  today  is  like  a  quicksand.  You  see 
a  man  walking  forward  with  confidence  on 
what  seems  to  be  a  firm  earth,  and  suddenly 
without  a  struggle,  he  sinks  from  sight  and  is 
lost — perhaps  forever. 


CHAPTER   H 

PETROGRAD   AXD   EMMA   GOLDMAN 

A  TELEGRAM  came  a  week  later  from 
-**•  Moscow,  from  Tchicherin,  Commissar  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  ordering  us  to  proceed  at 
once.  A  special  car  was  attached  to  the  only 
daily  train  from  Reval  to  Petrograd,  for  my 
wife,  myself  and  the  courier,  whose  ostensible 
duty  was  to  escort  guests  of  the  Government 
into  Russia.  We  were  both  as  excited  as  a 
pair  of  children,  my  wife  even  more  than  I, 
for  she  had  about  given  up  hope — indeed,  she 
was  so  much  elated,  that  in  the  confusion  she 
allowed  some  needy  gentleman  to  relieve  her 
of  her  pocketbook  and  gloves.  When  we  came 
to  the  Russian  frontier,  I  was  anxious  to  get 
my  first  glimpse  of  the  Red  Army — that  ex- 
traordinary army  of  revolutionaries  which  has 
become  the  greatest  armed  force  in  Europe. 
Finally  the  train  stopped  alongside  of  a  group 

16 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN    17 

of  soldiers  with  red  ribbons  on  their  shoulders, 
the  typical  stalwart,  unkempt  private  of  Rus- 
sia. They  might  have  been  brothers  of  the 
men  I  had  drilled  years  ago.  To  express  my 
enthusiasm,  I  snatched  a  red  necktie  from  my 
valise  and  waved  it  wildly  out  of  the  window. 

One  of  the  soldiers  smiled,  and  now  I  think 
I  know  what  that  smile  meant.  It  was  not 
one  of  mere  welcome.  Perhaps  he  was  think- 
ing, "Wait  till  you  come  back  this  way,  my 
friend.  If  you  are  glad  to  see  me  then,  it  will 
be  because  you  are  headed  in  another  direc- 
tion." 

After  we  had  passed  the  border,  we  stopped 
frequently  to  load  up  with  wood  for  the  engine, 
since  there  is  no  coal  available  for  the  rail- 
roads, and  in  many  places  we  noticed  that  the 
heavy  labor  of  loading  the  logs  into  the  tender 
was  done  by  young  women.  My  wife  was 
astounded,  since  she  had  never  seen  women 
performing  this  sort  of  work  before,  and  I 
think  that  her  first  feeling  of  disillusionment 
of  Russia's  Government  of  the  Proletariat, 
came  then.  She  remarked  that  she  could  not 
understand  why  the  railroad  Soviets  permitted 


18  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

these  girls  to  do  hard  manual  labor.  I  tried 
to  talk  with  some  of  the  girls,  asking  them 
why  they  worked  in  this  way  and  what  pay 
they  received  for  it,  but  the  courier  who  was 
with  us  always  managed  to  interrupt  our  con- 
versation and  to  get  me  away  from  them.  In 
fact,  I  began  to  suspect  that  he  was  more  of 
a  guard  than  a  courier. 

We  stopped  for  half  an  hour  at  one  station, 
and  in  an  effort  to  shake  off  this  too  friendly 
companion,  I  walked  about  the  platform.  A 
group  of  people  had  collected  around  our 
carriage  and  were  apparently  discussing  us. 
Since  they  did  not  know  that  I  could  speak 
Russian,  I  stood  near  them  and  listened.  There 
I  caught  the  first  whisper  of  the  discontent 
that  is  being  uttered  in  every  corner  of  Rus- 
sia, a  discontent  that  is  pathetic  -because  it 
seems  hopeless,  but  that  may  some  day  end 
in  a  blaze  of  anger  which  will  throw  down 
everything  before  it. 

"Tchicherin  lets  two  foreigners  have  a  spe- 
cial car  to  themselves,"  one  man  was  saying 
in  a  discontented  voice,  "two  of  them  in  a 
whole  car,  while  we  who  are  Russians  have 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     19 

to  travel  in  freight  car  packed  in  like  sardines. 
What  do  people  who  are  looked  after  as  if  they 
were  children  of  the  Czar  know  about  condi- 
tions in  Russia?  When  they  get  back  what 
have  ihey  to  write  in  their  foolish  books  but 
'There  is  plenty  to  eat;  they  stuffed  us  like 
pigs,  and  we  traveled  like  princes  and  lived 
in  palaces.'  If  the  fools  could  only  talk  Rus- 
sian they  might  learn  something,  but  even 
then  no  one  w,ould  dare  to  do  any  more  than 
ask  one  of  them  for  a  cigarette." 

I  faced  them  suddenly.  "What  is  that  you 
are  saying  about  being  afraid  to  talk  to  me?" 

"Are  you  a  Russian?"  somebody  asked. 
"We  thought  you  were  English." 

"I  am  a  Russian,"  I  said,  "but  I  haven't 
been  here  for  fifteen  years.  I  have  come  to 
find  out  everything  that  I  can." 

They  burst  into  a  chorus  of  voluble  com- 
plaints. One  man  said  he  had  been  robbed  of 
everything  but  his  life  in  his  home  village. 
Soldiers  had  descended  upon  it  one  day  and 
had  taken  his  grain,  burned  his  house,  killed 
one  of  his  brothers,  and  had  taken  him  away 
with  them.  Now  he  had  to  work  on  the  rail- 


20  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

way  under  dreadful  conditions  with  hardly 
enough  to  eat  to  keep  him  -alive.  Another  man 
in  a  torn  army  coat,  said  that  he  would  freeze 
when  next  winter  came,  as  all  of  his  clothes 
had  been  taken,  and  that  it  was  impossible  to 
save  enough  money  to  get  more  clothes.  He 
had  to  buy  extra  bread  with  anything  he  had 
left  or  see  his  wife  starve. 

"The  survival  of  the  fittest,"  I  thought 
gloomily,  "or  rather  the  survival  of  the  lean- 
est." 

The  interpreter  who  had  been  out  of  sight 
for  a  few  moments,  now  caught  sight  of  me, 
and  as  he  hurried  tow-ard  me  the  big  group 
suddenly  melted  away.  But  later  on  I  was 
able  to  get  a  few  words  with  some  of  the  train 
crew,  one  of  whom,  an  intelligent  man,  had 
been  a  conductor  .on  another  route  before  the 
Revolution.  He  spoke  bitterly  of  the  appalling 
change  in  his  life.  He  used  to  live  comforta- 
bly on  150  roubles  a  month.  Now  he  received 
an  allowance  of  a  common  laborer,  3500  rou- 
bles, worth  about  a  dollar  in  actual  purchas- 
ing power,  besides  the  usual  insufficient  ra- 
tions, and  both  he  and  his  family  were  always 


M.  ALEXANDER  SCHWARTZ 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     21 

on  the  verge  of  starvation.  He  tried  to  im- 
press on  me  his  indignation  at  the  general 
neglect  of  the  railroads — the  great  confusion 
into  which  a  once  orderly  system  had  fallen. 

"From  Reval,  only  one  train  a  day,  and 
that  is  packed  to  suffocation — and  I  hear  that 
everywhere  else  it  is  just  as  bad.  And  I  must 
go  on,"  he  said,  "for  I  must  somehow  live." 

Finally  another  man  came  up,  who  proved 
to  be  a  genuine  Communist.  "Don't  listen  to 
him,"  he  said.  "He  is  really  a  'bourjou' 
(bourgeois).  I  know  more  about  conditions 
than  he  does  and  I  tell  you  that  it  is  not  the 
Government's  fault.  They  are  doing  the  best 
they  can." 

I  shook  hands  with  him  and  returning  to 
our  car  gave  him  a  new  pair  of  shoes,  over- 
joyed to  find  a  good  Bolshevist.  The  man 
looked  at  me  in  a  startled  way  for  a  moment, 
for  later  I  found  out  that  shoes  are  enormously 
expensive  in  Russia.  He  felt,  I  presume,  as 
I  would  at  home  if  a  stranger  had  suddenly 
given  me  his  pocketbook  stuffed  with  bills. 

"But  I  have  nothing  to  give  you  in  return," 
he  said.  "I  have  no  money."  I  told  him  that 


22  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  had  two  more  pairs  and  that  I  did  not  need 
them. 

"Not  need  them!"  he  cried.  "Good  God!" 
and  he  suddenly  rushed  away.  But  just  be- 
fore the  train  was  to  leave  he  reappeared, 
panting,  carrying  a  clothes  brush  engraved 
with  his  name,  which  he  insisted  on  my  tak- 
ing. It  was  ridiculous  to  think  of  his  tearing 
through  the  streets  to  bring  me  so  absurd  a 
present,  but  at  the  same  time,  it  showed  some- 
thing of  the  state  of  things. 

Our  courier,  or  interpreter,  or  whatever  he 
was,  kept  his  eye  on  us  sharply  for  the  rest 
of  the  journey.  He  was  a  young  Jew,  typical 
of  a  multitude  of  others  who  were  thriving 
under  the  service  of  the  Soviet  Government, 
for  they  seem  to  have  a  peculiar  facility  for 
adapting  themselves  to  conditions  under  which 
the  ordinary  man  sinks.  I  was  old  enough  to 
have  been  his  father,  and  found  his  rudeness 
almost  unbearable.  He  was  constantly  break- 
ing into  my  conversation  with  my  wife,  and  he 
was  amazingly  lacking  in  common  sense.  His 
chief  aim  seemed  to  be  to  pump  absurd  propa- 
ganda into  the  ears  of  strangers. 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     23 

"We  have  organized  life  magnificently  for 
what  nsed  to  be  called  the  lower  classes,  and 
for  the  workmen,"  I  heard  him  say.  "Every 
other  nation  but  Soviet  Kussia  neglects  them, 
exploits  them,  lets  them  rot — " 

And  yet  every  few  moments  throngh  the 
train  windows  an  example  of  this  magnificent, 
organized  life  would  pass  by,  a  ragged  peasant 
or  a  lean  woman  with  a  pale  child.  We  had 
with  us  for  a  time  the  official  representative 
of  Esthonia,  a  uniformed  officer.  He  became 
visibly  impatient  at  this  torrent  of  misguided 
information. 

"You  need  not  tell  me  any  more,"  he  said 
finally.  "I  know  Russia  and  we  have  nothing 
against  your  people.  You  asked  us  for  peace 
and  for  it  you  paid  us  fifteen  million  in  gold. 
We  accepted  it.  That  is  sufficient  for  me." 

At  last  we  steamed  into  the  station  at  Petro- 
grad,  where  we  were  met  by  two  officers  who 
had  been  sent  by  Zinoviev,  the  Governor  of 
Petrograd.  We  were  only  going  to  stay  in 
Petrograd  for  a  few  hours,  for  the  same  train 
was  taking  us  to  Moscow  that  night.  A  motor 
car  was  waiting  outside  the  station,  and  we 


24  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

bumped  over  dilapidated  and  half  deserted 
streets  to  the  great  Osomvsky  Palace,  where 
formerly  the  meetings  of  the  Duma  were  held, 
and  where  Zinoviev  now  has  his  offices.  The 
Hall  of  the  Duma  is  at  present  nsed  for  oc- 
casional public  meetings,  for  conventions  and 
festivities  of  different  kinds. 

Zinoviev  rose  from  an  enormous  desk  to 
greet  us.  He  told  us  that  Petrograd  was  open 
for  our  inspection  and  that  we  could  go  about 
where  we  wished  until  it  was  time  for  our 
train  to  leave.  I  asked  him  what  had  become 
of  the  deported  anarchists  who  had  been  sent 
back  to  Russia  from  the  United  States.  He 
said  that  Alexander  Berkman  and  Emma  Gold- 
man and  a  few  others  of  the  original  two 
hundred  and  forty-nine  from  the  "Soviet 
Ark"  were  in  Petrograd,  and  that  Emma  Gold- 
man and  Berkman  were  living  at  one  of  the 
government  hotels  and  were  getting  on  very 
well,  he  believed.  This  completed  the  inter- 
view and  we  were  promptly  presented  to  an- 
other interpreter.  I  told  this  particular  fellow 
that  I  could  get  along  perfectly  well  without 
him  since  I  spoke  Russian  as  well  as  he  did, 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     25 

but  he  insisted  firmly  that  I  needed  him.  Ap- 
parently, it  was  the  rule  not  to  allow  any 
foreigner  to  go  out  alone.  We  were  to  hear 
only  what  they  wanted  us  to  hear,  and  see 
only  what  they  were  determined  that  we  should 
see.  It  soon  came  to  be  more  than  I  could 
put  up  with  for  me,  a  Russian,  to  be  guided 
about  in  my  own  country  in  this  absurd  way. 
Our  latest  friend  started  out  with  us  for  a 
pre-arranged  sight-seeing  tour.  I  half  ex- 
pected to  see  a  bus  outside  with  "Chinatown 
and  the  Bowery "  written  on  it.  "We  were 
motored  down  Petrograd's  great  boulevard, 
Nevski  Prospect,  and  started  on  the  tour  of 
churches  and  public  buildings  as  if  we  were 
typical  American  tourists  bound  on  "doing 
the  town"  before  dinner.  I  was  prepared  for 
a  contrast  with  the  great  and  brilliant  city 
that  I  had  known,  but  the  Petrograd  that  I 
saw  struck  me  with  almost  a  chill  of  fear. 
The  great  thoroughfare  was  there,  and  the 
majestic  buildings  that  I  recalled,  but  there 
was  an  air  of  melancholy  and  ruin  every- 
where. The  shops  shuttered ;  windows  broken ; 
shabbiness  and  decay  and  dirt  everywhere. 


26  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Imagine  Fifth  Avenue  vacant  and  deserted ;  its 
gorgeous  shops  boarded  np;  great  gaps  in  its 

pavement;  its  hotels  empty .  It  was  like 

a  city  of  the  dead. 

After  we  had  visited  the  second  empty 
church,  my  wife  rebelled. 

"I  did  not  come  to  see  this  sort  of  thing, 
Mitri,"  she  said.  "Can't  we  get  rid  of  him 
in  some  way?" 

I  told  our  guardian  that  my  wife  was  tired 
and  that  we  would  go  back  to  the  train.  So 
we  were  driven  to  the  station  where  he  saw 
us  safely  on  board  and  left  us.  As  soon  as 
he  was  out  of  sight  we  went  out  into  the  street 
again  and  made  our  way  toward  the  hotel 
where  I  had  just  been  told  Emma  Goldman 
and  Alexander  Berkman  were  living.  It  was 
the  Astoria,  the  most  famous  and  most  gor- 
geous of  the  old  Petrograd  hotels,  in  the  old 
days  comparable  to  the  Ritz  of  London  or 
New  York  in  its  luxuriousness.  I  found  it 
dilapidated  and  filthy,  the  carpets  torn  and 
soiled,  the  elevator  out  of  commission,  as  if 
it  had  been  sacked  by  an  invading  army.  We 
were  met  at  the  door  by  soldiers  with  rifles, 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     27 

who  told  me  that  I  must  have  a  pass  to  enter 
the  hotel,  when  I  said  that  I  wanted  to  visit 
comrades  from  the  United  States. 

They  showed  us  into  a  little  reception  room 
where  we  could  obtain  a  pass,  and  here,  in  a 
space  of  about  twenty  feet  by  fifteen,  so  blue 
with  smoke  that  it  gave  the  appearance  of  a 
Turkish  bath,  there  were  a  score  of  men  and 
women  listlessly  waiting.  Finally,  since  no 
one  seemed  to  be  the  least  interested  in  us,  I 
went  up  to  one  of  the  officers  and  asked  him 
if  I  could  see  Emma  Goldman.  I  told  him 
that  I  had  understood  from  Zinoviev  that  she 
had  been  staying  there  for  a  long  time. 

"I  never  heard  of  her  before,"  he  said. 
"But  if  Zinoviev  says  she  is  here  I  will  try 
to  find  out."  He  looked  through  the  register 
for  a  moment. 

"All  right!  She  is  here!  Now  what  do 
you  want  to  see  her  for?" 

"We  were  comrades  in  the  United  States. 
My  wife  and  I  are  delegates  from  the  Socialist 
Party  of  America." 

At  last  we  were  given  a  pass  and  we  found 
our  way  to  the  room  that  he  had  indicated, 


28  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

passing  a  soldier  on  each  floor.  I  rapped  on 
the  door,  which  was  opened  by  Alexander 
Berkman. 

"Great  God!  What  are  you  doing  here?" 
he  said. 

"Where  is  Emma!"  my  wife  asked. 

"She  is  downstairs  trying  to  cook,"  Berk- 
man  answered.  "I  will  get  her  np  here  in  a 
moment. ' ' 

He  telephoned  to  her,  and  while  we  were 
waiting  I  looked  aronnd  the  room.  There  was 
a  sword  hanging  on  the  wall  near  the  writing 
desk,  and  I  asked  him  what  he  used  it  for.  He 
told  me  that  he  was  an  officer,  and  that  it  was 
part  of  his  equipment  as  a  member  of  the 
Eed  Army. 

Presently  the  door  opened,  and  Emma  Gold- 
man came  in,  carrying  a  tray. 

"For  the  love  of  Mike!  How  did  yon  get 
here?"  she  exclaimed.  She  pnt  her  tray  down 
on  the  center  table,  and  after  her  first  aston- 
ishment was  over  we  sat  down  to  eat.  There 
were  some  canned  peaches  that  had  a  familiar 
look  about  them,  and  my  wife  asked  her  if  this 
food  had  been  supplied  them  by  the  govern- 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     29 

ment,  but  it  turned  out  that  she  was  still  get- 
ting along  with  the  reserve  supply  that  she 
had  brought  from  the  United  States. 

We  stayed  with  them  several  hours,  as  both 
of  them  seemed  delighted  to  see  somebody  who 
had  just  come  from  the  States,  and  they  asked 
us  innumerable  questions  about  their  comrades 
whom  they  had  left  behind.  Then  the  talk 
turned  to  Kussia,  that  tremendous  enigma 
which  is  puzzling  the  entire  civilized  world. 
It  did  not  take  me  long  to  find  out  what  was 
Emma  Goldman's  opinion  of  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment. She  was  as  frank  about  it  as  she 
could  be.  I  had  explained  to  her  my  bewilder- 
ment at  the  things  I  had  seen  and  heard  in 
the  few  hours  that  I  had  already  spent  in 
Russia.  Could  she  explain  away  this  atmos- 
phere of  hostility  and  fear  on  the  part  of  the 
very  people  for  whom  this  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat  had  been  founded? 

"Tell  me,  Emma,"  I  begged,  "what  is  this 
government  of  Russia?" 

"It  is  too  rigid.  There  is  too  much  sys- 
tem!" she  exclaimed.  She  waved  her  hand 
violently.  "There  is  no  government  here.  I 


30  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

mean  that.  Conditions  are  horrible.  I  would 
rather  live  in  prison  in  America  than  be  free 
in  Russia. " 

My  astonishment  was  so  great  that  I  almost 
fell  off  my  chair.  The  first  realization  of  how 
great  was  the  difference  between  the  reality 
and  the  illusion  that  the  working  people  of 
America  and  ourselves  had  entertained  con- 
cerning Bolshevism  began  to  impress  itself 
on  my  consciousness. 

That  night  we  left  for  Moscow,  arriving 
there  early  in  the  morning.  At  the  station  we 
were  met  by  several  officers  of  the  Red  Army, 
and  a  company  of  soldiers  and  a  military  band. 
It  was  an  extremely  noisy  reception.  The  sol- 
diers shouted  and  the  band  played  the  "Inter- 
nationale" until  the  whole  place  resounded 
with  it.  It  was  too  much  honor,  I  felt,  for  a 
simple  person  like  myself.  I  might  have  been 
the  Czar  in  the  old  days  returning  to  his  faith- 
ful city  of  Moscow.  After  the  cheering  and 
the  waving  of  red  flags  had  quieted  down,  we 
were  greeted  by  the  official  reception  com- 
mittee and  were  taken  to  a  magnificent  limou- 
sine outside,  the  same  car,  I  was  told,  in  which 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     31 

the  Czar  used  to  ride,  and  were  driven  to  the 
hotel  which  is  used  by  the  Government  to  in- 
stall their  guests,  the  old  Commercial  House. 
It  could  hardly  be  recognized  under  its  new 
dress,  for  it  was  decorated  with  red  flags  and 
bunting  faced  with  enormous  letters  in  prac- 
tically every  language  of  Europe — German, 
French,  Russian,  English,  Italian.  The  four- 
story  building  had  completely  disappeared 
under  this  mass  of  decoration. 

My  wife  and  I  were  given  three  rooms 
equipped  with  all  modern  improvements, 
steam  heat,  electricity,  telephone  and  bath. 
Breakfast,  we  were  told,  would  be  ready  at 
nine  o  'clock  in  the  common  dining  room,  where 
we  would  meet  delegates  from  all  over  the 
world. 

I  changed  from  my  traveling  clothes,  and 
feeling  that  one  ought  to  be  suitably  attired 
for  meeting  this  illustrious  gathering  of  Inter- 
national Socialists,  I  put  on  the  ceremonial 
frock  coat,  white  vest,  and  an  uncomfortable 
high  collar.  I  did  not  want  the  American 
Socialist  Party  to  be  ashamed  of  one  of  its 
members. 


32  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

But  when  I  came  into  the  dining  room  with 
my  wife  at  nine  o'clock  and  saw  that  every- 
one was  glancing  at  me  with  utmost  surprise, 
I  wished  that  my  appearance  was  not  quite 
so  formal.  Later  on  I  discovered  that  nearly 
everyone  thought  that  I  was  there  as  an  ec- 
clesiastical representative  from  the  churches 
of  the  United  States.  I  felt  so  much  out  of 
place  in  the  midst  of  all  these  men  in  ordinary 
business  clothes  that  I  slipped  out  again  im- 
mediately and  put  on  the  suit  which  I  had 
just  taken  off.  Every  one  smiled  when  I  took 
my  place  again  beside  my  wife.  The  first  man 
to  greet  me  was  Patrick  Quinlan,  who  had 
come  there  as  the  American  representative  of 
the  I.  W.  "W.  I  met  John  Reed  and  a  few 
other  Americans,  and  then  the  French,  English 
and  Italian  delegates  who  were  in  the  room. 
There  were  interpreters  for  all  languages. 
The  breakfast  was  simple  but  there  was  plenty 
to  eat,  the  famous  Russian  cereal,  "kasha," 
plenty  of  bread  and  cheese,  coffee,  tea,  sugar 
and  fresh  milk. 

After  dinner  an  automobile  was  provided 
for  us,  and  my  wife  and  I  were  taken  to  the 


PETROGRAD    AND    EMMA    GOLDMAN     33 

State  Department,  which  is  now  in  the  Hotel 
Metropole,  where  we  met  Tchicherin,  the  Com- 
missar of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  an  assistant 
who  was  introduced  to  us  as  Comrade  Rosen- 
berg. We  spent  about  an  hour  with  Tchich- 
erin, who  furnished  us  with  credentials  as 
delegates  to  the  Second  Congress  of  the  Third 
International.  Tchicherin  said  that  this  gave 
us  the  privilege  of  going  anywhere  we  wished 
in  Moscow,  although  we  must  not  go  outside 
the  city  without  special  permission.  From 
the  Foreign  Office  we  were  driven  back  to  the 
hotel,  where  black  bread,  chicken,  candy,  ice 
cream,  tea  and  cheese  were  served  to  a  still 
larger  gathering  of  delegates.  It  was  obvious 
that  the  guests  of  the  Government  were  not 
to  go  hungry. 


CHAPTER 

MOSCOW   REVISITED 

the  next  evening  after  our  arrival,  we 
were  taken  to  the  Imperial  Theatre,  the 
great  opera  house  of  Moscow.  The  enormous 
auditorium  was  filled  to  capacity.  The  aris- 
tocracy and  beauty  of  the  old  days  were  gone ; 
the  decorations  over  the  Czar's  box  had  been 
torn  away.  Here,  where  what  was  perhaps 
the  most  brilliant  society  of  Europe  used  to 
gather,  was  now  a  mass  of  common  soldiers, 
officers  with  the  Bed  insignia,  young  boys  and 
girls,  and  a  host  of  shabbily  dressed  men  and 
women.  Gone  were  the  jewels,  the  gorgeous 
gowns,  the  lavish  display  of  wealth,  the  nobil- 
ity of  Russia — the  great  landowners  who  spent 
their  winters  in  Moscow,  the  officers  in  their 
gorgeous  uniforms,  who  always  stood  motion- 
less facing  the  Czar's  box  during  the  inter- 
mission. The  golden  ceiling,  the  staring  boxes, 

34 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  35 

tier  after  tier,  looked  down  upon  the  Prole- 
tariat. The  inner  fortress  of  society,  of  capi- 
talistic luxury  had  been  captured  by  the  people 
who  used  to  stand  outside  its  doors  enviously 
watching  these  people  of  a  higher  world  de- 
scend from  their  carriages. 

When  we  entered  the  theatre  with  the  other 
delegates,  a  great  shout  rang  out,  "Long  live 
the  Third  International!"  The  entire  audience 
rose  to  its  feet  and  sang  the  national  air  of 
new  Russia,  the  chant  of  social  revolution, 
which  has  the  same  significance  in  Eussia  as 
did  the  "Marseillaise"  once  in  revolutionary 
France.  With  its  innumerable  stanzas  it  took 
almost  ten  minutes  to  complete  it,  and  then, 
still  standing,  they  sang  it  all  over  again.  I 
thought  to  myself,  that  these  people  were 
either  enormously  patriotic  or  else  they  were 
enormously  patient.  Later  on,  when  I  heard 
this  melancholy  and  yet  stirring  air  for  the 
ten  thousandth  time,  I  grew  so  weary  of  it 
that  I  felt  I  never  wanted  to  hear  it  again. 
When  the  audience  finished  applauding  itself 
for  its  part  in  the  performance,  Shaliapin,  the 
greatest  bass  in  the  world,  sang  for  us.  He  is 


36  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

extremely  popular  with  the  public,  as  indeed, 
are  nearly  all  the  great  singers  and  actors  of 
the  old  regime  who  have  not  fled  to  Paris  or 
America.  They  are  paid  enormous  salaries. 
For  example,  I  was  told  that  Shaliapin  for 
singing  before  us  that  evening  received  200,000 
roubles.  It  is  true  that  while  I  was  in  Russia 
I  could  exchange  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  ten  dol- 
lar gold  pieces  for  100,000  roubles,  or  over 
50,000  roubles  for  our  paper  currency  in  the 
same  amount.  With  my  small  store  of  coins 
it  would  have  been  possible  for  me  to  have 
ordered  a  private  performance  of  an  entire 
opera.  But  nevertheless  it  is  obvious  that  in 
Russia  a  fifth  of  a  million  roubles  is  still  an 
immense  sum. 

After  the  performance,  and  after  the  audi- 
ence had  favored  us  again  with  the  "Inter- 
nationale," we  were  taken  back  to  the  hotel, 
where  supper  was  served  at  eleven. 

Both  my  wife  and  I  were  greatly  impressed 
with  what  we  had  seen,  but  we  agreed  that 
we  had  not  come  to  Moscow  for  music  and 
caviar  and  receptions.  We  wanted  to  know 
how  it  fared  with  the  Russian  people  them- 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  37 

selves.  We  had  had  four  hearty  meals  that 
day,  and  there  must  have  been  thousands  of 
men  in  the  great  factories  of  Petrograd  and 
Russia  who  had  gone  to  bed  hungry  and  who 
were  wondering  whether  the  next  week  would 
bring  them  enough  black  bread  to  keep  their 
children  from  starvation.  So  it  used  to  be  in 
the  old  days  in  Russia,  and  so  it  was  today. 

We  decided  that  at  the  earliest  possible  op- 
portunity we  would  get  away  together  from 
the  government  interpreters  and  go  about  the 
city  ourselves.  But  in  the  morning  we  were 
told  that  we  had  an  appointment  with  Karl 
Radek,  the  President  of  the  Third  Interna- 
tional of  the  World.  There  is  something  iron- 
ical in  the  fact  that  Radek 's  office  is  in  the 
former  German  Embassy,  a  stately  building 
from  which  the  eagle  of  Germany  had  been 
torn  down.  When  we  entered,  I  was  astounded 
at  the  beauty  of  the  interior,  luxurious  furni- 
ture, crystal  chandeliers,  and  valuable  paint- 
ings which  must  have  been  worth  a  fortune. 
We  met  Comrade  Radek  in  what  was  formerly 
Count  Mierbach's  office.  Radek  is  a  Jew,  and 
an  extremely  excitable  man.  As  soon  as  he 


38  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

saw  us  he  began  to  shont  as  if  he  were  in  a 
violent  rage  about  the  errors  that  the  Socialist 
Party  in  the  United  States,  and  incidentally 
my  wife  and  I,  had  committed. 

"Why  was  the  Socialist  Party  so  slow  with 
the  revolution  in  America?  Why  were  you  so 
much  behind  other  countries?  Why  have  you 
waited  so  long  to  endorse  the  Communist 
Party!" 

I  told  him  that  I  would  explain  all  of  that 
later  on  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  but  at  the 
present  time  I  had  come  to  get  a  permit  which 
would  enable  us  to  go  about  Moscow  freely. 

"Very  well,"  said  Eadek.  "I  will  see  that 
you  have  an  interpreter  so  that  you  will  be 
able  to  understand  everything  that  you  see." 

WTien  we  returned  to  the  hotel,  we  were 
formally  registered  and  put  through  a  form 
of  cross-examination  by  the  commandant  of 
the  hotel,  who  had  his  soldiers  stationed  in 
every  hallway.  It  was  very  much  as  if  we 
were  arrested.  He  also  gave  us  a  pass  by 
which  we  were  enabled  any  time  to  enter  or 
leave  the  hotel.  The  commonest  acts  of  life 
seemed  to  be  bound  up  with  an  insufferable 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  39 

amount  of  red  tape.  As  we  were  leaving  the 
hotel  for  a  walk  through  the  city,  a  young  Jew 
by  the  name  of  Feinberg  stopped  ns  at  the 
door.  There  seemed  to  be  no  way  of  dodging 
these  interpreters. 

"But  I  do  not  need  you,"  I  protested.  "I 
speak  Russian  perfectly  and  I  served  in  the 
army  and  I  have  lived  in  Moscow."  But  it 
was  of  no  use.  Feinberg  said  that  things  had 
changed,  that  even  streets  were  changed,  and 
that  he  really  could  not  permit  us  to  go  alone. 
So,  weary  and  in  silence,  we  tramped  with 
him  around  more  buildings  and  churches,  and 
even  went  into  a  soldiers '  home.  But  we  spoke 
to  no  one.  It  was  a  repetition  of  our  experi- 
ence in  Petrograd,  and  when  we  returned  we 
decided  that  it  must  not  continue  and  the 
next  morning  we  would  slip  away  from  the 
hotel  too  early  to  be  caught  by  these  tireless 
guides. 

Quite  early  the  next  morning,  before  the 
official  breakfast  was  served,  we  slipped  out 
between  the  guards  at  the  entrance  and  started 
to  see  what  Moscow  was  like  in  reality.  Out- 
wardly, at  first  there  seemed  to  be  no  great 


40  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

change.  The  main  streets  were  not  in  such 
bad  repair  as  in  Petrograd,  there  were  fewer 
blank  windows.  On  the  whole,  the  people  who 
passed  seemed  to  be  a  little  better  clothed. 
But  the  same  air  of  decay  and  misery  hang 
about  them  and  pervaded  the  city.  The  shat- 
tered shops,  many  with  their  plate  glass  win- 
dows smashed,  told  that  commerce  was  dead; 
but  as  we  penetrated  deeper  into  the  poor 
living  quarters  of  the  city  the  true  condition 
of  things  became  more  and  more  apparent. 
We  met  men  and  women  walking,  or  rather 
shuffling  up  and  down  the  streets  as  if  they 
had  been  driven  out  of  their  lodgings  by  sheer 
inability  to  stay  still.  You  have  seen  animals 
pacing  up  and  down  in  their  cages.  It  was 
like  that.  In  the  parks  they  sat  in  the  sun- 
light— motionless,  abject  and  hopeless.  These 
were  the  people  who  had  not  found  a  place  for 
themselves  under  the  dictatorship  of  the  Prole- 
tariat. Driven  to  the  very  verge  of  misery, 
they  looked  forward  hopelessly  to  a  future  of 
suffering  from  which  they  could  not  escape, 
and  there  was  no  possibility  of  a  revolt  against 
this  future  left  in  them.  The  complexions  of 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  41 

most  of  them  were  unpleasantly  yellowish, 
and  they  seemed  slightly  bloated.  Here  and 
there  we  saw  people,  as  we  had  in  Petrograd, 
whose  jaws  were  bandaged,  for  their  food,  or 
lack  of  it,  affected  their  teeth  and  there  are 
no  dentists,  nor  money  to  pay  them  if  there 
had  been.  Here  in  these  poorer  quarters  yon 
could  see  that  civilization  was  dying.  The 
stench  of  its  decay  was  everywhere.  Once  we 
penetrated  into  a  courtyard,  which  was  faced 
with  the  black  windows  of  a  hundred  tene- 
ments. It  would  be  useless  to  try  to  describe 
it.  I  have  seen  the  slums  of  other  great  cities, 
but  never  have  I  been  so  impressed  with  the 
sufferings  of  human  beings  as  in  these  back 
streets  of  Moscow. 

My  poor  wife  was  so  oppressed  by  what  we 
had  seen  that  we  made  our  way  towards  the 
broader  avenues  for  fresh  air.  And  here, 
though  the  air  was  clearer,  was  the  same  pic- 
ture of  decadence.  The  cement  of  the  side- 
walks was  cracked  so  that  it  was  dangerous 
to  walk  on  them;  windows  were  smashed  and 
gaping  from  the  blackened  fronts  of  the 
houses  with  rusty  tin  stove-pipes  projecting 


42  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

from  them,  which  must  have  poured  their 
smoke  into  every  tenement  above. 

The  sewer  pipes  were  broken,  and  through 
cracked  basement  windows  we  could  see  foul 
lakes  of  black  water  with  refuse  and  garbage 
and  dead  cats.  I  did  not  wonder  so  much  that 
people  were  dying  under  these  horrible  con- 
ditions, as  that  under  them  it  is  possible  to 
live  at  all.  And  yet,  somehow,  they  were 
managing  to  live,  dragging  on  from  day  to 
day.  And  children  were  being  born  to  them 
and  were  dying  in  the  foul  atmosphere  of  the 
streets,  for  there  were  no  medicines,  no  doc- 
tors, or  milk,  and  the  mothers  themselves  were 
undernourished  and  gaunt. 

Many  of  the  men  and  women  in  the  streets 
were  barefooted,  some  in  their  stocking  feet, 
carrying  their  shoes  in  their  hands  to  save 
them  for  the  winter.  Old  men  and  women  and 
cripples  were  begging  openly,  dozens  on  every 
block.  Anyone  decently  dressed  became  a 
mark  for  them  and  they  rushed  toward  my 
wife  and  myself  in  swarms.  "We  gave  them 
money,  of  course,  paper  money,  and  twice 
women  fell  upon  their  knees  and  blessed  us. 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  43 

It  was  insufferably  painful  and  there  was  no 
pleasure  in  giving  it,  for  what  possible  use 
could  they  make  of  a  score  or  so  of  roubles 
when  a  pound  of  bread  that  was  sour  and 
black  is  worth  almost  twenty  times  what  I 
had  given  them? 

To  escape,  we  went  into  a  church,  which  was 
empty,  save  for  one  or  two  old  women  and  a 
priest.  From  the  outside  we  expected  to  find 
it  looted,  for  the  ikons  were  so  rusted  that  it 
was  impossible  to  distinguish  their  subjects, 
and  the  very  stones  were  dingy  with  neglect. 
But  inside  it  had  not  changed,  for  the  great 
paintings,  the  brilliant  mosaics,  and  the  huge 
gilt  altar  with  its  bronze  gates  had  not  been 
injured.  But  it  was  deserted,  cast  aside  by 
the  people  like  a  worn-out  shoe. 

"We  sat  down  in  the  great  cool  building  to 
rest  for  a  moment,  and  I  tried  to  tell  my  wife 
as  best  I  could  what  Moscow  had  been  like 
fifteen  years  ago.  At  home,  before  the  war, 
I  had  always  promised  her  that  some  day  we 
would  go  abroad  and  visit  Petrograd  and  Mos- 
cow and  Odessa.  In  her  mind  she  had  thought 
of  these  far-off  cities  as  far  more  picturesque 


44  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

and  Beautiful  than  anything  she  had  ever 
seen  in  her  own  country.  She  realized,  of 
course,  that  four  years  of  war  and  three  more 
of  social  revolution  had  changed  their  outward 
aspect.  But,  nevertheless,  her  disappointment 
was  intense.  "When  once  a  house  has  fallen  to 
ruins,  when  its  paint  is  peeling  off,  and  its 
roof  sags  with  decay,  it  is  hard  to  picture  it 
fresh  and  clean,  the  home  of  prosperous  hap- 
py people.  I  felt  that  she  must  think  that  I 
had  deceived  her,  so  I  told  her  how  clean  the 
streets  were  kept,  of  the  three-horse  troikas 
that  used  to  race  through  the  boulevards  in 
winter  with  their  silver  bells;  of  the  porter 
at  the  door  of  every  house,  who  used  to  wash 
the  pavements  with  water  every  morning, 
standing  in  the  doorway  with  a  white  apron 
for  the  rest  of  the  day;  of  the  order  that 
reigned  everywhere;  the  gorgeous  shops  where 
anything  in  the  world  could  be  bought;  the 
restaurants  with  their  gypsy  orchestras;  the 
great  crowds  and  marvelous  music  of  the  male 
choirs  in  the  churches ;  of  the  festivities  in  the 
parks — of  everything  that  came  to  mind,  as 
part  of  the  brilliant  despotic  civilization  that 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  45 

one  recalled  now  as  a  distant  and  faint  mem- 
ory of  something  beautiful  that  is  gone  for- 
ever. I  told  her  that  the  air  rang  with  the 
sound  of  bells  from  the  churches  in  the  Krem- 
lin and  from  every  part  of  the  city  on  Sundays 
and  sacred  days,  and  what  the  great  Hotel 
Metropole  had  once  been  like  before  it  had 
become  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

"But  that  was  bad,  Mitri,"  she  said.  "And 
the  poor  man  suffered  to  produce  all  that 
wealth  and  beauty." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "it  was  bad,  and  I  fought 
against  it." 

Jessie  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then 
she  looked  at  me  sadly.  "I  wonder  after  what 
has  happened,  Mitri,  if  this  is  any  better?" 

"It  must  be  better,"  I  said.  "The  dream 
which  we  have  held  for  a  life-time  has  been 
too  great  to  be  dispelled  overnight.  It  must 
be  better!"  Yet  I  was  haunted  \\ith  the  fear 
that  these  men  who  governed  Russia  had  made 
it  worse. 

As  I  was  anxious  to  enter  into  conversation 
with  some  of  the  people,  I  spoke  to  the  first 
man  we  met  after  we  had  left  the  church.  He 


46  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

was  of  the  old  type  of  Kussian  Jew,  and  wore 
a  long  beard,  so  I  asked  him  if  there  were 
many  synagogues  in  Moscow. 

"Yes,"  he  -said.  "But  I  worry  about  get- 
ting something  to  eat,  and  not  about  syna- 
gogues in  these  days." 

When  I  told  him  that  we  were  American 
Socialists,  and  that  we  were  interested  in  the 
condition  of  the  country  outside  -of  its  public 
affairs,  he  asked  that  pathetic  question  to 
which  later  on  I  grew  accustomed — the  ques- 
tion not  about  our  opinion  of  Kussia,  not 
about  the  revolution  in  America,  which  their 
papers  tell  them  is  imminent — but  this: 

"Can  you  get  all  the  bread  you  want  in 
America!" 

"Yes,"  I  said.  "We  have  -bread  and  any- 
thing else  you  want." 

He  turned  to  us  earnestly.  "I  suppose  it  is 
true,"  he  said.  "You  have  everything  and 
in  this  country  we  are  starving.  And  yet  we 
have  no  right  to  protest.  We  have  no  right 
to  criticize,  to  publish  anything  that  the  Bol- 
sheviki  do  not  like  to  hear.  The  only  press  is 
their  press.  There  isn't  even  justice.  I  used 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  47 

to  be  in  business,  a  good  business,  and  now 
I  try  to  make  a  few  miserable  roubles  on  the 
side,  and  some  day  perhaps  an  enemy  will 
bring  charges  against  me.  I  will  be  shot  in 
some  dirty  courtyard.  That  is  the  sort  of  rule 
we  are  living  under.  But  I  know  yon  people ; 
you  won't  tell  America  that." 

I  asked  him  if  the  Government  interfered 
in  any  way  with  the  Jewish  services  at  the 
synagogues. 

" Always  a  spy  is  there,"  he  said.  "And 
if  anyone  says  anything  against  the  Bolsheviks 
he  hears  of  it  the  next  day.  They  still  let  us 
go  to  church,  but  in  winter  they  do  not  furnish 
us  with  any  wood,  and  naturally  most  of  us 
have  stopped  going." 

"But  it  isn't  cold  now,"  I  objected. 

"We  are  too  worried  and  frightened  to 
bother  about  it  any  more.  The  rabbis  used  to 
live  on  what  we  gave  them  at  the  church.  Now 
many  have  died.  Our  God  has  forsaken  us." 

"I  used  to  be  a  tailor,"  he  went  on  bitterly. 
"My  shop  was  taken  away  from  me  three 
years  ago.  They  robbed  me  of  everything, 
and  now  for  working  for  the  Government 


48  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

eight  hours  a  day  I  get  just  enough  to  keep 
soul  and  body  together." 

I  told  him  that  the  Government  was  doubt- 
less allowing  him  as  much  as  they  could,  but 
he  did  not  listen  to  me. 

"They  are  a  gang  of  cut-throats  and 
thieves,"  he  shouted,  and  then,  as  if  he  were 
afraid  of  what  he  had  said,  he  walked  rapidly 
away. 

As  my  wife  was  fatigued,  we  made  our  way 
back  to  the  hotel,  where  we  found  that  a  num- 
ber of  Communists  and  delegates  were  about 
to  go  to  a  children's  farm  which  had  been 
organized  by  the  Government,  outside  the  city. 
I  rode  out  with  them,  while  my  wife  rested. 
The  farm  is  situated  seven  or  eight  miles  be- 
yond the  city  limits,  and  we  entered  just  in 
time  to  take  dinner  with  the  children,  who 
came  trooping  in  from  the  fields.  We  ate  with 
them,  and  if  their  dinner  was  a  sample  of  their 
customary  rations,  I  fail  to  see  how  it  is  enough 
for  a  growing  child.  It  consisted  of  two 
slices  of  bread,  a  bowl  of  thin  soup  and  a 
plate  of  kasha;  there  was  no  milk  or  sugar. 
But  the  children  looked  fairly  well,  beyond  all 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  49 

comparison  better  than  the  poor  little  wretches 
we  had  seen  on  the  city  streets,  for  at  least 
they  had  green  fields  and  fresh  air.  In  the 
city  they  were  thin  and  sickly,  and  dirty  with 
neglect,  for  a  mother  cannot  clean  her  child's 
clothes  without  soap.  The  feeling  of  oppres- 
sion that  had  been  stealing  on  me  more  and 
more  lightened;  here  was  an  effort  to  relieve 
a  little  of  the  pervading  misery,  one  con- 
structive thing  that  the  Government  was  do- 
ing for  its  people.  I  realized,  however,  that 
this  school  was  used  as  an  example  by  the 
Government  in  order  to  impress  the  delegates, 
and  that  there  are  only  a  few  of  them,  a  little 
oasis  in  the  midst  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  suffering  children  of  the  cities. 

While  the  interpreter  was  telling  the  dele- 
gates of  this  and  the  other  educational  reforms 
which  the  Government  was  attempting,  I  talked 
to  some  of  the  children  outside.  I  had  heard 
a  few  uncomfortable  rumors  about  the  way 
some  of  the  schools  were  conducted,  for  in  the 
one  we  were  visiting,  and  in  many  others,  the 
teachers  were  all  men,  with  boys  and  girls 
there  together  from  fifteen  to  eighteen  years 


50  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

of  age.  However,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  there 
is  no  justification  for  these  rumors;  but  since 
human  nature  is  what  it  is,  it  is  undoubtedly 
a  profound  error  on  the  part  of  the  authorities 
to  house  girls  and  boys  of  this  age  under  the 
charge  of  men  teachers. 

Eemembering  the  religious  education  of  the 
children  of  my  days,  I  asked  them  if  they  were 
accustomed  to  pray  in  the  morning  when  they 
got  up.  Ono  of  the  girls  answered  that  they 
did  not,  and  that  they  had  no  Bibles.  The 
girls  were  allowed  to  wear  crosses,  but  the 
boys  had  laughed  at  them  so  that  they  took 
them  off.  Their  family  ikons  had  to  be  kept 
in  their  trunks.  They  were  not  allowed  to 
have  them  in  sight  in  their  rooms. 

Later  on  I  went  up  to  one  of  the  teacher's 
rooms  to  drink  tea  with  him.  The  walls  were 
covered  with  pictures  of  the  Communist  lead- 
ers. There  were  Lenin  and  Trotsky,  Karl 
Marx  and  Liebknecht,  and  others  of  allegori- 
cal subjects  portraying  the  fall  of  capitalism. 
I  asked  him  in  what  way  their  teaching  dif- 
fered from  the  education  before  the  revolution. 

"Aside  from  the  elementary  things,  the  three 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  51 

B's  and  in  this  school,  agriculture,  we  are 
teaching  them  to  be  good  Communists,"  he 
explained.  "For  history  they  have  the  class 
struggle  between  the  laborers  and  their  mas- 
ters through  the  ages.  They  must  learn,  for 
instance,  the  Communist  Manifesto  of  1864 ;  the 
story  of  the  Second  International  in  1889  and 
its  evolution  in  1917  to  the  Third  International. 
Then  they  are  told  of  class  consciousness,  of 
the  struggle  between  labor  and  capital,  of  the 
various  methods  to  overthrow  the  governments 
of  the  world.  One  of  the  advanced  courses 
concerns  the  effective  use  of  propaganda. 
They  are  taught,  in  short,  to  take  their  places, 
when  they  graduate,  as  thorough  Communists 
and  revolutionists." 

It  occurred  to  me  that  the  great  school  sys- 
tems outside  of  Eussia  might  do  well  to  take 
something  for  their  own  benefit  out  of  the 
Communist  conception  of  education.  A  great 
deal  might  be  gained  even  in  schools  in  Amer- 
ica in  teaching  pupils  some  of  the  economic 
conditions  which  are  to  rule  their  lives,  for 
though  I  do  not  pretend  to  any  expert  knowl- 
edge of  education,  I  know  that  the  children 


52  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

of  our  schools  are  brought  np  in  ignorance  of 
the  mechanics  of  the  capitalistic  system  under 
which  they  must  live. 

In  another  hour  we  left  the  school  and  re- 
turned to  Moscow,  where  in  the  evening  about 
two  hundred  delegates  of  the  International 
from  all  over  the  world  met  and  discussed 
conditions  in  the  various  countries.  It  was  a 
veritable  tower  of  Babel;  one  heard  at  the 
same  time  Italian,  Spanish,  German,  French, 
English  and  Eussian;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
speech  of  our  compatriots  from  Turkey  and 
the  Balkans.  There  were  several  interpreters 
present,  who  were  the  most  astonishing  lin- 
guists that  can  be  imagined,  and  could  turn 
from  one  tongue  to  another  with  the  greatest 
facility  and  ease. 

On  the  next  day  we  paid  a  visit  to  Lenin, 
who  is  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  man  in 
the  world  today.  He  has  surrounded  himself 
with  so  many  barriers  and  so  much  red  tape, 
that  to  get  into  his  presence  is  almost  as  diffi- 
cult as  it  would  be  to  secure  an  interview  with 
royalty  in  other  countries.  It  has  its  justifi- 
cation in  the  threats  and  attempts  that  have 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  53 

Been  made  against  his  life.  Indeed,  the  visitor 
to  Russia,  when  he  sees  the  violent  hatred 
that  surrounds  the  Government,  cannot  help 
constantly  wondering  why  the  Bolshevist  lead- 
ers have  not  been  assassinated  before  this. 
Certainly  it  is  not  from  lack  of  experience 
with  this  form  of  terrorism. 

The  City  Commandant  of  Moscow  gave  us 
the  necessary  permit  which  would  take  us  to 
the  gates  of  the  Kremlin,  where  we  were 
stopped  by  two  soldiers,  who,  after  examining 
our  passports,  telephoned  to  an  office  inside 
for  permission  to  allow  us  to  enter. 

In  the  great  enclosure  of  the  Kremlin,  sur- 
rounded by  an  immense,  ancient  wall,  are  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  oldest  churches  in  Rus- 
sia. In  one  of  them,  which  was  severely  in- 
jured by  a  shell  during  the  fighting  of  the 
second  revolution,  the  Czars  of  Russia  had 
been  crowned  for  generations.  Nearby  lay 
the  huge,  historic  bell  which  has  been  photo- 
graphed by  so  many  thousands  of  tourists, 
and  beyond  it  the  long,  low  facade  of  the 
old  royal  palace  where  the  Czar  stayed  on  his 
visits  to  Moscow. 


54  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

This  place  is  now  the  center  and  the  soul  of 
the  Russian  Government,  for  in  it  Nikolai 
Lenin  has  his  headquarters.  Standing  between 
the  buildings  are  huge  cannon,  artillery  guns 
and  mortars,  with  shells  of  enormous  size,  for 
in  case  of  another  revolution,  if  the  Govern- 
ment loses  the  protection  of  the  Kremlin,  its 
position  in  the  capital  could  not  be  held.  It 
was  in  the  Kremlin  that  the  Kerensky  Govern- 
ment made  its  last  stand  for  the  control  of 
Moscow,  and  I  have  heard  it  said  that  if  the 
resistance  of  the  young  cadets  who  garrisoned 
the  fortress  had  been  supported  by  the  anti- 
Bolshevist  citizens  of  Moscow,  the  city  would 
not  have  fallen. 

Except  that  it  is  so  dingy  that  you  cannot 
tell  its  original  color,  the  Czar's  palace  is  un- 
injured. We  went  in  by  the  great  door,  but 
after  going  through  the  usual  ceremony  of 
presenting  our  documents  and  passes  we  were 
told  to  wait  in  the  palatial  hall.  Around  us 
nothing  seemed  to  have  been  touched.  Doubt- 
less it  is  exactly  the  same  as  it  was  when  the 
Czar  of  all  the  Russias  lived  there.  The  pol- 
ished floors  shine  like  glass,  and  around  us 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  55 

were  the  beautiful  paintings  and  furnishings 
of  the  Romanoffs. 

In  about  ten  minutes  I  saw  the  familiar  fig- 
ure of  Lenin  approaching.  In  appearance  he 
is  an  extraordinary  contrast  to  one's  idea  of 
how  the  dictator  who  rules  all  Russia  with  an 
iron  hand  should  look.  If  you  were  to  meet 
him  on  the  streets  of  Moscow  as  an  ordinary 
citizen,  I  doubt  if  it  would  occur  to  you  to 
give  him  a  second  glance.  He  might  be  a 
clergyman  from  a  small  town  in  the  States, 
or  perhaps  a  middle-class  and  not  too  success- 
ful business  man.  But  when  you  examine  him 
closely  you  can  understand  a  little  of  the 
great  force  that  emanates  from  him.  He  has 
the  broad  forehead  of  the  thinker,  but  it  is 
his  eyes  that  are  most  impressive,  for  they 
are  sharp  and  penetrating  and  very  shrewd. 
^Vhen  he  is  conversing  casually  he  seems  ex- 
tremely amiable,  and  when  he  smiles  his  eyes 
are  so  narrowed  that  they  almost  disappear. 
He  has  a  rough  good  humor,  and  is  constantly 
saying  things  that  make  people  around  him 
laugh.  He  is  not  an  orator,  but  is  an  extraor- 
dinarily well  read  man,  and  he  talks  on  the 


56  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

affairs  of  Russia  and  the  world  very  freely. 
He  appeared  to  me  to  be  perfectly  familiar 
with  the  conditions  of  Europe,  also  those  of 
America,  and  I  doubt  very  much  if  he  is  in 
the  slightest  degree  deluded  by  the  propaganda 
that  floods  the  country.  I  presume  that  he  is 
in  constant  communication  with  loyal  Commu- 
nists of  various  countries.  But  when  he  talks 
seriously  about  the  social  revolution  and  the 
struggle  abroad  he  becomes  grave  and  stern, 
and  it  is  then  that  you  see  the  force  of  his 
greatness. 

Lenin  was  very  affable  to  ns  and  spoke  in 
his  broken  English,  since  my  wife  did  not  un- 
derstand Russian.  We  told  him  who  we  were 
and  why  we  had  come  to  Russia,  and  he  asked 
me  questions  about  the  growth  of  the  revolu- 
tionary feeling  in  the  United  States,  the  Social- 
ists, the  Labor  and  the  Communist  movements 
and  other  things,  which  I  answered  briefly  and 
as  well  as  I  could.  The  conversation  turned 
upon  Russia. 

"If  your  government  had  not  interfered 
with  us,"  he  said,  "Russia  would  now  be 
prosperous,  in  a  better  condition,  perhaps, 


MOSCOW    REVISITED  57 

than  any  other  country  in  the  world.  But  we 
are  not  to  blame.  It  is  you  Socialists  on  the 
other  side  who  are  allowing  the  capitalist 
class  to  blockade  us."  . 

I  answered  that  we  were  not  yet  sufficiently 
powerful  in  number,  and  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  in  an  unbelieving  way  and  changed 
the  subject.  Then  he  told  us  that  since  we 
were  there,  we  must  certainly  stay  for  the 
congress  of  the  International,  which  was  going 
to  be  held  the  next  month. 

"You  will  have  a  message,  and  a  powerful 
one,"  he  said,  "to  give  to  the  working  people 
of  America  when  you  return." 

This  closed  the  interview,  and  he  shook 
hands  with  us  again  and  left  us. 


CHAPTER   IV 

WORTHLESS   MONEY  AND   HUMAN   SUFFERING 

T  N  order  to  complete  the  downfall  of  the 
•*•  capitalist  system  in  Russia,  buying  and 
selling  is  forbidden  by  order  of  the  Govern- 
ment. Theoretically,  all  property  in  Russia 
belongs  to  the  nation  and  cannot  be  exchanged 
privately  for  gain.  But  with  the  great  cities 
literally  starving,  and  with  the  complete  lack 
of  the  vital  necessaries  of  life,  the  attempt 
to  suppress  what  must  be  one  of  the  most 
primitive  instincts  of  mankind,  has  failed.  The 
paper  money  is  debased  to  almost  nothing, 
nevertheless  it  still  has  purchasing  power,  and 
so,  day  after  day,  peasants  from  the  surround- 
ing country  secretly  bring  into  the  city  small 
quantities  of  flour  and  vegetables,  while  sec- 
ond-hand clothing,  fur  hats  and  matches,  and 
even  jewelry,  are  offered  for  sale  in  the 
markets. 

The   center   for   this  illegal  trading,   which 
58 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  59 

actually  goes  on  all  over  the  city,  is  the  great 
open  market,  with  the  adjacent  bazaar,  which 
was  once  called  the  "Jews'  Market."  By  the 
time  we  arrived,  the  Government  had  begun  to 
wink  openly  at  this  illegal  trading,  though 
their  spies  prowled  about  the  market-place  in 
order  to  catch  the  criminal  who  operated  on 
a  larger  scale,  the  speculator.  Occasionally,  a 
particularly  zealous  commissar  would  attempt 
to  put  a  stop  to  it  by  arresting  everyone  in 
sight,  but  on  the  next  day  it  went  merrily  on 
as  if  nothing  had  happened.  I  was  told  that 
at  one  time  ten  thousand  people  were  rounded 
up  in  this  market,  but  as  there  was  no  room 
for  them  in  the  jails,  they  were  released  very 
soon  afterwards. 

We  visited  the  market  on  the  day  after  our 
interview  with  Lenin.  It  was  a  pathetic  spec- 
tacle, and  to  me  it  was  a  final  denial  of  the 
essential  principle  of  Communism.  Many  of 
the  Bolshevists  believe  that  their  failure  to 
stop  petty  trading  is  the  result  of  the  preva- 
lent scarcity  of  necessaries.  If  Russia  were 
prosperous,  so  that  the  Government  could 
furnish  the  population  with  sufficient  food  and 


60  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

clothing,  they  believe  that  this  illegal  traffic 
would  cease.  But  that  does  not  account  for 
the  many  objects  I  saw  offered  for  sale  that 
were  not  necessaries  of  life,  such  as  rings, 
jewelry,  cigarette  boxes.  There  seemed  to  be 
a  desire  among  the  people  of  this  poverty- 
stricken  city  to  own  things  that  would  dis- 
tinguish them  in  some  way  from  their  neigh- 
bors. If  Eussia  becomes  prosperous  again, 
this  desire  of  the  individual  to  own  property 
in  addition  to  what  the  Government  gives  him 
will  increase  rather  than  diminish;  for  how 
can  any  ruling  group  of  men  foresee  all  the 
desires  of  mankind! 

When  we  arrived  at  this  market,  which  is 
about  four  or  five  blocks  in  length,  it  was 
swarming  with  people,  and  all  of  them  seemed 
as  nervous  as  a  herd  of  cattle  who  were  about 
to  stampede.  Bulkier  objects  were  laid  on  the 
ground,  the  more  valuable  things  hidden  under 
coats  and  in  pockets.  The  prices,  which  seemed 
to  be  regulated  from  some  mysterious  source, 
were  quite  stable.  Bread,  for  example,  was 
500  roubles  a  pound;  a  very  indifferent  her- 
ring, for  which  a  housewife  in  the  United 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  61 

States  would  refuse  to  give  ten  cents,  was 
offered  to  me  for  3000  roubles.  A  package  of 
ten  cigarettes,  made  of  the  horrible  tobacco 
which  the  soldier  smokes,  wrapped  up  in  news- 
paper, was  500  roubles.  A  single  piece  of 
dirty  lump  sugar  obtained  the  enormous  value 
of  200  roubles,  and  a  box  of  matches  cost  just 
half  as  much.  As  for  shoes,  a  single  pair  was 
priced  at  50,000  roubles,  while  a  pair  of  cow- 
hide boots  was  for  sale  for  100,000  roubles, 
and  both  the  dealer  and  purchaser  stood  in 
great  danger  of  arrest,  for  a  transaction  in- 
volving such  a  sum  came  almost  within  the 
limits  of  speculation,  which  meant  perhaps 
summary  arrest  and  death. 

The  ground  of  the  market  was  filthy,  and 
my  wife  came  to  the  limit  of  her  endurance 
when  she  looked  into  a  barrel  of  mashed  pota- 
toes which  were  offered  for  250  roubles  a 
pound,  so  we  turned  back  toward  the  open 
street. 

At  the  entrance  I  met  a  man  with  a  pound 
of  flour  who  seemed  eager  to  give  me  informa- 
tion. I  asked  him  how  much  it  would  take 
to  live  reasonably  well  in  Eussia  today. 


62  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"A  single  man  can  live  luxuriously  on 
200,000  roubles  a  month,"  he  said. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  luxury?"  I  asked. 

"Food,  enough  food!  Butter,  perhaps  a 
little  sugar,  good  meat  and  now  and  then 
chicken,  besides,  of  course,  the  usual  black 
bread  and  fish." 

"How  about  clothes?"  I  asked. 

"No,  you  couldn't  buy  clothes  on  it,  though 
if  you  cut  down  on  some  of  the  other  things 
you  might  be  able  to  get  a  pair  of  shoes." 

I  asked  him  to  make  out  a  list  of  the  living 
expenses  of  this  hypothetical  Russian  with  a 
millionaire's  income.  It  ran  something  like 
this:  Sixty  pounds  of  bread  for  30,000  rou- 
bles; chicken  three  times  during  the  month, 
30,000  roubles;  meat  four  times,  25,000  rou- 
bles; three  pounds  of  sugar,  20,000  roubles; 
butter,  14,000  roubles;  four  boxes  of  matches, 
400  roubles;  occasionally  fruit,  such  as  straw- 
berries, pears,  prunes,  approximately  25,000 
roubles.  The  remainder  might  be  spent  for 
coffee  and  tea,  salt  and  incidentals,  and  per- 
haps for  tobacco. 

Theoretically,  again,  in  the  ideal  Communist 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  63 

state  there  should  be  only  one  class — the  Prole- 
tariat. But  here  again  a  universal  instinct  of 
mankind  has  fought  and  has  won  the  battle 
against  theory.  In  America,  the  place  you 
occupy  in  society  is  indicated  by  your  educa- 
tion, your  work,  the  house  you  live  in,  the 
clothes  you  wear  and  the  food  you  eat.  Here 
it  is  largely  a  matter  of  wealth.  In  Russia, 
the  same  distinctions,  the  same  classes  exist, 
although  wealth  has  been  destroyed.  In  Rus- 
sia a  man  who  is  a  member  of  the  Government, 
a  commissar,  is  at  the  top  of  the  heap,  then 
comes  the  employee  of  the  Government,  the 
prosperous  peasant,  the  soldier,  the  man  who 
is  listed  as  a  Communist.  After  these  fortu- 
nate members  of  society  come  the  common 
laborer,  the  bourgeois,  and  lastly,  the  unfor- 
tunate man  who  cannot  work  with  his  hands 
and  is  too  much  a  part  of  the  old  system  to 
secure  employment  in  the  Government.  And 
in  the  structure  of  Russian  society  he  is 
doomed,  as  the  drunkard  and  the  degenerate 
are  doomed  in  our  social  scale.  It  is  true  that 
in  Russia  the  actual  difference  between  the 
upper  and  lower  sections  of  the  scale  seems 


64  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

less  than  it  does  elsewhere,  but  it  is  greater 
than  the  difference  between  the  millionaire 
and  the  workingman  in  this  country. 

Toward  the  top  of  the  ladder  yon  can  be 
warm  in  winter,  sufficiently  clothed  and  have 
enongh  to  eat;  at  the  bottom  you  live  in  a 
frozen,  Trninhabitable  tenement,  surrounded  by 
dirt  and  disease,  your  clothes  are  in  rags,  and 
you  are  always  a  little  more  than  half-starved. 
It  is  the  difference  between  comfort  and  utter 
misery.  One  man  gets  two  pounds  of  bread 
a  day,  and  has  the  power  of  buying  more  for 
his  family;  another  gets  a  pound,  and  a  third 
receives  three-quarters  of  a  pound  for  two 
days.  The  same  distinction  applies  in  every 
way.  I  have  brought  back  with  me,  for  ex- 
ample, three  pieces  of  soap  which  were  made 
in  Petrograd  and  distributed  there.  The  first 
is  an  oval-shaped  cake  or  ordinary  soap  such 
as  one  can  buy  in  this  country,  intended  for 
the  Commissars;  the  second  is  a  rough  chunk 
of  gray  substance,  for  their  assistants  and  for 
officers:  and  the  third  is  a  small  cube,  hard 
as  stone  and  black  as  ink,  which  is  distributed 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  65 

to  the  proletariat  workers.  If  yon  are  below 
that  rank  you  get  none  at  all. 

After  our  visit  to  the  market,  we  returned 
to  the  hotel  and  to  what  was  getting  to  be  the 
accustomed  routine  of  dinner  and  theatre,  in- 
terspersed with  repetitions  of  that  song  of 
revolution,  the  "Internationale,"  and  the  next 
day  we  went  out  to  a  military  hospital  near 
the  Kremlin,  where  we  distributed  to  the  sol- 
diers cigarettes  which  had  been  thoughtfully 
provided  by  the  Government  before  we  left. 

The  men  seemed  glad  to  see  us  and  asked 
me  the  conventional  questions  about  America. 
"Had  we  enough  to  eat  there?  "What  salaries 
were  paid,  and  could  the  workingman  get  white 
bread?"  There  were  two  large  wards  filled 
with  men,  cared  for  by  a  few  male  nurses, 
owing  to  the  nature  of  their  disease.  A  man 
told  me  that  the  usual  length  of  their  stay  was 
about  two  weeks,  and  that,  although  of  course 
there  was  no  chance  of  their  being  cured,  since 
they  were  not  given  medicine  or  drugs  of  any 
sort,  they  would  be  sent  back  to  the  front  as 
soon  as  they  were  able  to  walk.  They  received 
exactly  the  same  food  as  at  the  front,  black 


66  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

bread,  sonp,  Jcaslia  and  tea.  But  on  the  whole 
these  men  did  not  seem  to  care  greatly. 
They  grumbled,  of  course,  but  the  Russian 
trooper  has  always  been  the  most  stolid  and 
long-suffering  soldier  in  the  world.  It  is  on 
this  quality  of  infinite  patience  that  the  power 
of  the  Soviets  rests. 

After  leaving  the  hospital  we  visited  a 
church  nearby.  It  was  almost  empty,  but  in 
the  distance,  limping  across  the  pavement,  I 
saw  the  priest.  In  appearance  he  seemed 
infirm,  very  old  and  emaciated  to  the  last 
degree.  His  complexion  was  that  unpleasant 
grayish  yellow  which  I  had  seen  on  the  streets. 
One  -eye  was  gone,  leaving  a  gaping  wound. 
My  wife  gasped  and  instinctively  drew  back. 
I  questioned  this  spectre  of  misfortune. 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "I  am  the  priest  of 
this  church.  I  was  born  in  Moscow  and  I  have 
lived  here  all  my  life." 

"I  want  to  find  out  as  much  as  I  can,"  I 
said,  "about  the  conditions  today  in  Russia. 
We  are  Americans,  and  you  can  trust  ua 
thoroughly."  I  could  see  that  he  was  still 
afraid  that  I  had  been  sent  there  as  a  spy,  but 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  67 

finally,  when  I  told  him  that  the  sooner  the 
American  people  knew  the  truth  about  Russia, 
the  better  it  would  be  for  his  people,  he  gave 
in. 

"Can  you  come  behind  the  altar!"  he  whis- 
pered. 

He  led  us  through  the  door  to  a  place  where 
we  could  not  be  seen  from  the  front  of  the 
church. 

"Look  at  me!"  he  exclaimed.  "How  old 
do  you  think  I  am?" 

"Sixty-five  or  seventy,"  I  answered,  "per- 
haps more." 

"I  am  forty-five !  The  Bolsheviki  have  killed 
my  wife  and  children.  You  know,  of  course, 
that  in  Eussia  all  of  the  priests  used  to  be 
married.  Instead  of  killing  me,  the  soldiers 
gouged  one  of  my  eyes  out.  It  is  a  miracle 
that  I  am  still  alive.  Many  other  priests 
suffered  the  same  fate  when  the  Kerensky 
Government  was  overthrown." 

The  thought  came  to  me  that  it  would  have 
been  better  if  he  had  been  killed,  for  though 
a  man  may  be  deprived  of  everything,  no  one 
can  take  from  him  his  capacity  to  suffer. 


68  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"What  hurts  me  most,"  he  said,  "is  to  see 
the  misery  of  the  small  remnant  of  my  people 
who  still  come  here.  The  poor  souls  bring 
pieces  of  bread  to  me  as  their  offering,  de- 
priving their  own  children  of  food  that  they 
need  desperately,  and  sometimes  I  am  ashamed 
to  take  it,  but  while  there  is  life  in  me  I  must 
go  on." 

"Do  you  get  anything  from  the  Govern- 
ment?" I  asked. 

"Now  and  then  I  can  find  a  place  with  the 
gangs  sweeping  the  streets  or  sawing  wood, 
but  they  will  not  give  me  any  clerical  or  office 
work." 

"You  would  be  better  off,"  I  said,  "if  you 
joined  the  Communist  Party  and  became  one 
of  them." 

The  wretched  man  looked  at  me  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  said  quietly,  "My  dear  brother, 
understand  that  my  father  was  a  priest  and 
his  father  before  him,  and  the  Communists 
know  it  well." 

"But  you  are  old  now,"  I  said.  "What 
would  happen  if  you  became  really  sick? 
Could  you  get  a  doctor?" 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  6» 

"It  is  simple  enough,"  he  said.  "I  will  die. 
But  what  is  death?  Life  is  nothing  to  me, 
and  whenever  God  calls  me  I  am  ready.  After 
losing  my  wife  and  children  I  have  no  cares 
left.  This  miserable  existence  does  not  de- 
serve to  be  called  life.  If  when  you  go  away 
you  wish  to  report  me  to  the  authorities,  I 
shall  not  care ;  I  shall  only  pray  that  you  may 
be  forgiven." 

I  told  him  not  to  worry,  and  that  we  would 
not  betray  him,  and  after  my  wife  and  I  had 
shaken  hands  with  him  warmly,  we  went  to  a 
nearby  park,  as  she  said,  to  get  the  chill  of 
that  place  out  of  our  bones. 

"It  was  like  having  a  conversation  with  a 
dead  man,  Mitri,"  she  said.  "Hell  cannot 
be  worse  than  what  he  is  going  through." 

There  were  a  number  of  Austrian  prisoners 
walking  restlessly  about  the  park,  prisoners 
of  a  war  that  had  ended  three  years  ago. 
Apparently  one  of  them  heard  us  talking  in 
English,  and  he  came  up  to  us  and  asked  us 
if  we  were  Americans,  and  if  so  what  we  were 
doing  in  Russia.  He  had  been  captured  in  the 
second  year  of  the  war  and  had  been  sent  to 


70  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Siberia,  where  he  had  stayed  for  three  years 
and  had  finally  been  brought  to  Moscow  to  be 
deported  to  Austria.  But  the  release  had 
never  come  and  he  and  a  few  comrades  that 
were  left,  for  many  had  died  of  their  hard- 
ships, were  working  as  laborers  for  the  Gov- 
ernment. Another  Austrian,  who  seemed  by 
his  bearing  to  be  an  officer,  asked  me  if  I  spoke 
Russian,  and  if  I  could  speak  to  him  privately 
for  a  few  minutes,  so  we  walked  a  short  dis- 
tance away  from  the  rest. 

"Tell  me,"  he  begged,  "what  is  going  on 
outside  of  Russia.1" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked. 

"The  Allies.  Aren't  they  going  to  come 
into  Russia?"  And  when  I  told  him  that  they 
were  not  coming,  "God!"  he  cried,  "we  have 
been  waiting  and  waiting  for  years  for  that 
to  happen.  It  was  the  only  hope  we  had,  and 
we  were  ready  to  help  them.  We  are  worn  to 
the  bone — and  there  is  no  end  to  it." 

He  turned  abruptly  and  walked  away. 

I  could  see  some  of  the  men  muttering 
among  themselves,  so  I  told  my  wife  that  we 
were  among  prisoners  and  that  there  was 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  71 

danger  that  they  would  think  I  was  a  spy,  so 
we  hurried  away.  As  we  walked,  I  could  not 
help  reflecting  that  never  had  I  seen  so  much 
bitterness  in  every  class  of  society  toward  any 
existing  government.  In  the  old  days  it  was 
hatred  and  anger  against  the  despotic  govern- 
ment of  the  Czar,  hut  today  these  people  had 
not  enough  courage  left  to  he  angry.  They 
were  bitter  and  hopeless.  Even  the  waiter  at 
the  hotel  had  been  sullen  when  I  asked  him 
if  he  received  the  same  food  that  we  were 
getting. 

"We  would  be  just  as  badly  off  as  anybody 
else/*  he  said,  "if  we  didn't  steal.  They 
watch  us,  but  we  manage  to  get  away  with  a 
good  deal  after  you  have  left  the  table." 

I  was  astonished  when  he  told  me  that  he 
was  not  a  Communist.  He  did  not  believe  in 
their  doctrines.  There  were  not  enough  Com- 
munists, he  said,  to  fill  positions  of  that  sort 
and  they  have  to  put  up  with  anyone  they 
can  get. 

When  we  reached  the  hotel,  my  wife  asked 
me  if  it  would  not  be  possible  to  get  in  touch 
with  some  of  the  women  of  the  city.  "No  one 


72  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

seems  to  think  or  care  about  them.  They  are 
just  as  much  a  part  of  Russia  as  the  men." 

So  that  afternoon  we  went  straight  to  a 
park  where  I  had  noticed  a  number  of  mothers 
sitting  with  their  children  under  the  trees.  A 
group  of  curious  women  in  shawls,  and  bare- 
footed, ragged  children,  gathered  about  us. 
This  was  their  time  for  rest,  it  seems.  Most 
of  them  had  already  worked  and  had  gone 
home  to  bring  their  children  to  the  park.  In 
an  hour  or  so  they  would  have  to  go  back  to 
work  again. 

I  told  them  that  we  were  Americans,  and  one 
little  boy  of  about  three,  after  staring  at  me 
earnestly  for  a  few  minutes,  said,  ''Please, 
Uncle,  can  you  get  nice  things  to  eat  in  Am- 
erica!" This  pathetic  question  from  a  child 
who  was  little  more  than  a  baby,  was  really 
heart-rending.  The  boy's  mother,  a  young 
woman,  burst  into  tears,  and  Jessie  asked  me 
what  he  had  said.  We  have  had  children  of 
our  own,  and  I  did  not  want  to  make  her  sad, 
but  she  insisted.  "Tell  him,  Mitri,"  she  said, 
"that  we  will  come  back  tomorrow  with  some- 
thing for  him  to  eat,"  and  she  put  her  arms 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  73 

aronnd  him  and  kissed  him  with  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

We  were  so  anxious  to  get  back  to  the  chil- 
dren that  we  thought  that  the  next  morning 
would  never  come.  My  wife  insisted  that  we 
must  bring  them  candy,  too. 

"A  little  bread  won't  be  of  much  use  to 
them,  Mitri,"  she  said.  "They  want  some- 
thing sweet,  and  you  have  to  get  some  candy, 
if  you  have  to  steal  it." 

So  I  became  a  thief.  After  lunch  I  robbed 
both  tables  of  all  the  candy  that  I  could  put 
into  my  pockets,  and  my  wife  waited  with  me 
until  the  delegates  had  left  the  table  and 
stuffed  her  bag  with  more.  Then  I  found 
some  sugar  on  the  sideboard  and  wrapped  it 
up  in  a  newspaper  with  all  the  bread  we  could 
find.  We  walked  to  the  park  as  fast  as  we 
could,  and  found  a  small  host  of  youngsters 
waiting  at  the  entrance  for  us.  We  sat  down 
on  the  grass  with  the  children  in  a  circle 
around  us,  and  distributed  our  spoils.  One 
candy  and  one  lump  of  sugar  to  each.  The 
count  did  not  come  out  even,  so  we  divided 
all  that  was  left  and  gave  it  to  the  mothers. 


74  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

One  of  the  poor  creatures  told  me  that  it  was 
the  first  time  in  six  years  that  she  had  had  a 
piece  of  candy. 

Among  the  rest  was  a  very  attractive  yonng 
woman,  who  it  was  obvious  had  once  belonged 
to  the  upper  class.  "I  do  not  ever  hope  to  be 
happy  again, "  she  said.  ''The  old  days  have 
gone  forever.  When  I  was  married  just  be- 
fore the  War,  the  whole  world  seemed  so 
beautiful.  It  is  like  a  dream  now.  My  hus- 
band is  dead,  and  I  work  for  the  Government, 
and  it  is  hard  to  get  enough  to  live  on.  Ex- 
cept for  my  boy  over  there,  I  have  no  one 
else  left.  You  see  they  killed  my  poor  hus- 
band, shot  him  without  trial  as  a  counter- 
revolutionist,  which  was  not  true;  he  was  not 
doing  any  harm.  I  hate  them  and  I  have  to 
work  for  them.  It  is  not  so  bad  in  summer, 
but  last  winter  was  so  dreadful,  I  do  not  want 
to  live  through  another.  I  have  no  clothes 
except  what  I  have  on,  and  the  winters  are 
so  dreadfully  long." 

When  I  translated  this  to  my  wife,  she  went 
back  to  the  hotel  for  a  heavy  sweater  that  I 
had  brought  with  me.  When  she  came  back 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  75 

with  it,  it  did  not  seem  fair  to  give  it  to  her 
in  the  presence  of  the  others,  some  of  whom 
were  in  perhaps  greater  need,  so  I  asked  them 
to  draw  lots  for  it,  and  we  were  delighted 
when  the  young  woman  who  had  won  onr 
sympathies  proved  to  be  the  winner. 

That  afternoon  while  we  were  in  the  park, 
several  of  the  foreign  delegates  with  their 
interpreters  passed  by,  and  I  felt  certain  that 
they  would  do  something  to  stop  my  wander- 
ing about  the  city  by  myself.  And  I  was 
right,  for  the  next  morning  the  Commandant 
asked  me  to  come  to  his  office,  where  he  in- 
formed me  politely  that  it  would  be  really 
wiser  if  I  went  out  with  some  of  the  inter- 
preters in  the  future. 

"But,"  I  objected,  "I  am  a  Eussian  and  I 
know  Moscow  well.  It  is  absurd  for  me  to  go 
around  like  a  tourist  in  a  foreign  country." 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "suit  yourself.  I 
have  simply  given  you  my  advice." 

I  determined,  however,  to  be  more  circum- 
spect in  the  future,  because  I  felt  certain  that 
I  would  be  watched.  Their  intention  was  ob- 
vious. They  did  not  want  the  delegates  to 


76  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

come  into  contact  with  the  suffering  that  was 
going  on  in  the  city.  But  it  was  impossible 
to  avoid  this,  for  it  met  one  at  every  turn. 

One  evening,  when  I  was  coming  home  late 
from  the  theatre,  I  saw  a  girl  lying  on  the 
sidewalk  in  front  of  the  old  Hotel  Metropole. 
The  night  air  was  cold  and  she  had  wrapped 
her  bare  feet  in  newspaper.  The  poor  crea- 
ture told  me  that  her  parents  had  died  and 
that  she  had  no  home,  and  had  slept  the  night 
before  in  the  park. 

"Why  don't  you  go  to  some  of  the  Red 
-Guard  for  help?"  I  asked.  "They  ought  to 
give  you  a  corner  to  sleep  in." 

"I  have  been  to  them,  but  they  will  not 
listen  to  me.  Can't  you  take  me  home  with 
you!" 

"But  I  am  married,"  I  objected,  "and  I 
live  in  a  hotel." 

"Then  take  me  to  your  wife,"  she  pleaded, 
"and  tell  them  that  I  am  your  sister." 

"But  that  isn't  possible,"  I  said.  "They 
know  I  have  no  sister.  I  will  give  you  money 
instead." 

"But  I  don't  know  where  to  find  a  room! 


WORTHLESS    MONEY  77 

Yon  can't  do  anything  with  money  in  Mos- 
cow." 

However,  she  took  the  few  hundred  roubles, 
but  although  she  thanked  me  and  cried,  she 
did  not  let  me  go.  She  seemed  to  see  in  me 
her  only  salvation  for  the  future.  At  the 
corner  of  the  street  a  group  of  soldiers  were 
standing,  so  I  went  up  to  them  and  told  them 
that  I  had  found  a  girl  sleeping  on  the  side- 
walk in  great  misery. 

One  of  them  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Well, 
what  of  it?"  he  said.  "You  see  scores  of 
them  every  night.  There  are  thousands  just 
like  them  all  over  the  country.  Everybody 
is  starving." 

I  wanted  to  walk  away  and  leave  her,  but 
something  compelled  me  to  turn  back.  "Come 
with  me,"  I  said,  "and  I  will  see  what  can 
be  done  for  you."  She  started  to  kiss  my 
hand  and  seemed  half  insane  with  joy  and 
gratitude. 

But  at  the  door  of  the  hotel  the  soldiers 
would  not  let  her  in.  She  had  no  pass,  and 
that  settled  it  as  far  as  they  were  concerned. 
I  sent  word  to  my  wife  to  come  down,  because 


78  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  thought  she  might  have  some  influence  on 
them.  She  asked  me  to  tell  the  guards  that 
since  we  had  three  rooms  we  could  take  care 
of  her,  and  that  she  would  look  after  the  girl 
herself,  and  be  responsible  for  her  until  we 
were  able  to  provide  for  her  in  some  way. 
But  it  was  no  use,  and  it  ended  by  our  leaving 
this  poor,  lost  creature  sobbing  in  front  of 
the  door,  while  we  went  safely  up  to  our  com- 
fortable quarters. 


CHAPTER   V 

SOLDIERS   OF   THE   RED   ARMY 

TT^OR  some  time  I  had  been  anxious  to  in- 
•••  speet  one  of  the  Moscow  prisons,  which 
I  had  heard  were  very  much  over-crowded,  to 
see  if  the  conditions  there  were  as  bad  as  they 
had  been  reported.  So  one  afternoon,  during 
the  following  week,  I  went  to  one  of  the  jails 
which  had  been  used  for  political  prisoners  in 
the  old  regime.  The  usual  soldiers  were 
guarding  the  gate.  I  asked  one  of  them  for 
what  crime  the  majority  of  their  prisoners 
had  been  convicted. 

"Most  of  them  have  been  caught  buying 
and  selling  in  the  streets,  and  besides  that  we 
have  a  lot  of  speculators,  but  they  don't  stay 
with  us  long."  And  then  he  added  with  a 
grin,  "We  are  pretty  well  filled  up,  but  I  guess 
I  can  find  room  for  you  inside  if  yon  are 
anxious  for  a  little  vacation." 

79 


80  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  told  him  that  I  was  a  delegate  from  the 
convention  and  had  a  pass  allowing  me  to  go 
anywhere  in  Moscow,  so  finally  he  was  per- 
suaded to  summon  the  Commandant.  A  man 
in  a  dishevelled  uniform  came  out,  and  as 
soon  as  he  saw  the  red  badge  I  wore  on  my 
coat,  lie  allowed  me  to  go  in  with  my  wife. 

Those  who  had  told  me  that  the  conditions 
in  the  prisons  were  horrible  had  fallen  wide 
of  the  mark.  They  we,re  unspeakable.  The 
rooms  were  black  with  filth,  and  some  of  them 
were  so  dark  that  they  were  like  caves,  for 
rags  had  been  stuffed  into  the  windows  to  take 
the  place  of  the  broken  glass.  In  each  room 
there  were  five  or  six  men,  who  glanced  at  us 
with  an  air  of  utmost  anxiety  as  soon  as  the 
door  opened.  I  was  to  learn  the  cause  of  their 
anxiety  later  on.  Every  man  that  I  spoke  to 
told  me  that  he  was  there  for  trading  in  the 
streets,  but  no  one  would  admit  that  he  had 
been  speculating.  They  were  not  physically 
maltreated  or  punished  in  any  way,  it  seemed, 
unless,  indeed,  any  punishment  could  be  greater 
than  having  to  sit  in  one  of  those  stifling  cells 
day  after  day. 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      81 

From  there  I  went  to  a  political  prison  in 
another  quarter  of  the  city,  but  I  was  told 
that  in  order  to  get  in  it  would  be  necessary 
to  see  the  head  of  the  much  feared  "Extraor- 
dinary Commission."  The  guard  said  that  he 
had  never  known  a  stranger  to  be  allowed  to 
enter,  so  I  gave  up  the  idea  readily. 

A  few  days  later,  Ivanoff,  one  of  the  Gov- 
ernment Commissars  in  the  Department  of 
Propaganda,  called  on  me  at  the  hotel  and 
asked  me  if  I  would  lecture  before  several 
thousand  soldiers  garrisoned  in  Moscow,  at 
the  clubhouse  of  the  Red  Army.  I  accepted, 
and  the  next  day  my  wife  and  I  were  driven 
out  to  a  large  structure,  which  in  many  of 
its  essentials  was  very  like  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  build- 
ing in  the  United  States.  It  provided  a  res- 
taurant, card  rooms,  a  theatre  and  a  lecture 
hall,  etc.,  for  the  men. 

The  building  was  crowded  with  troops  when 
we  entered,  and  we  had  dinner  with  a  number 
of  officers  at  a  long  table  in  the  restaurant. 
Most  of  them  were  a  careless  and  cheerful  lot 
of  youngsters.  But  there  were  several  older 
and  more  serious  men,  who  I  imagined  had 


82  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

been  officers  in  the  old  days.  Few  of  these 
older  officers  are  Communists  at  heart.  They 
are  serving  with  the  Bed  Army  because  they 
are  soldiers  by  profession  and  because  they 
must  do  that  or  starve.  I  have  heard  that 
many  of  them  have  become  ardent  Bolshevists, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  an  officer 
who  had  been  trained  to  believe  that  he  be- 
longed to  a  totally  different  social  order  from 
the  private,  could  ever  accept  the  new  equal- 
ity. In  the  old  days  their  life  was  regulated 
by  the  strictest  formality;  but  since  then  they 
have  seen  their  men  mutiny  and  their  brother 
officers  murdered.  Xow  they  had  to  call  these 
peasants  whom  they  commanded,  "Tavarish," 
comrade. 

Soon  after,  I  stood  on  the  platform,  facing 
a  sea  of  khaki-colored  uniforms.  There  must 
have  been  over  two  thousand  men  present. 
They  were  very  attentive,  for  I  spoke  to  them 
about  the  United  States,  and  of  the  great  in- 
terest that  the  American  workingmen  had  in 
Soviet  Russia.  I  knew  the  sort  of  speech  that 
I  was  intended  to  make,  and  delivered  it  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  and  then  went  on  to 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      83 

tell  them  more  abont  conditions  here.  When 
I  came  to  the  description  of  the  wages  paid 
in  the  United  States  and  the  cost  of  living, 
the  interest  of  my  audience  became  intense. 

A  representative  of  Ivanoff  was  sitting  be- 
side my  wife,  and  when  I  happened  to  glance 
at  him  once,  I  saw  that  he  was  violently  shak- 
ing his  head.  Things  were  not  going  as  he 
had  wished,  and  I  realized  instantly  that  I 
was  not  on  the  right  track.  I  brought  my  lec- 
ture to  a  close,  with  the  usual  request  for  the 
audience  to  ask  me  any  questions  that  they 
wished. 

One  man  after  another  shouted  to  me  from 
his  seat,  not  the  sort  of  questions  that  you 
would  have  expected  from  these  soldiers  who 
were  fighting  for  the  Revolution  of  the  World 
Proletariat.  Not  one  of  them  inquired  of  onr 
government  or  of  our  institutions.  They  were 
the  same  pathetic  questions  I  had  heard  so 
many  times — can  you  buy  in  the  United  States 
all  the  bread  and  the  sugar  and  the  milk  that 
you  want?  Can  the  ordinary  workingman  buy 
clothes  if  he  needs  them?  Can  a  poor  man  get 
a  decent  meal  in  a  restaurant!  The  Questions 


84  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

were  thundered  at  me  from  every  corner  of 
the  auditorium.  I  shouted  out  one  or  two  an- 
swers, and  then  the  Commissar,  who  obviously 
had  become  more  and  more  disturbed,  jumped 
up  on  the  platform.  I  continued  to  shout  my 
answers,  for  I  did  not  see  why  I  had  not  a 
perfect  right  to  speak,  but  the  Commissar 
stepped  in  front  of  me,  and  when  he  obtained 
silence  he  told  them  that  Comrade  Schwartz 
had  not  come  from  the  United  States  to  an- 
swer their  questions,  but  to  tell  them  of  the 
progress  of  the  world  revolution,  and  to  bring 
to  them  the  greetings  of  the  American  Social- 
ist Party. 

"Long  live  the  Government  of  the  Prole- 
tariat !"  he  shouted,  and  when  the  cheering 
was  over,  the  meeting  dispersed. 

Afterwards  I  shook  hands  with  a  long  line 
of  men,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  since  we 
could  not  speak  to  each  other  as  we  wished 
with  our  tongues,  they  were  trying  to  express 
what  they  felt  in  another  way.  All  of  them, 
I  am  sure,  knew  that  I  had  spoken  the  truth, 
but  they  must  have  wondered  why  it  was  so 
much  at  variance  with  what  they  had  heard 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      85 

of  the  results  of  the  capitalistic  despotism  of 
America  on  their  own  class.  Some  of  them 
must  have  had  relatives  in  the  United  States, 
for  the  Russians  emigrated  to  the  United 
States  before  the  war  in  large  numbers.  Many 
of  them,  including  a  group  of  officers,  asked 
me  to  speak  to  them  again.  I  told  them  that 
whenever  I  was  invited,  I  would  give  up  any- 
thing to  come  to  them,  but  I  knew  well  that 
this  would  be  the  last  time  I  would  ever  have 
the  chance,  for  I  had  made  a  serious  blunder 
in  letting  them  know  that  the  American  work- 
ingman  is  well  paid  and  that  he  has  good  food 
and  clothes.  They  had  endured  so  much  suf- 
fering and  want,  these  men  of  Russia,  who 
ought  to  be  plowing  the  fields  around  their 
villages,  or  at  work  in  the  factories!  And 
I  had  opened  to  them  the  vision  of  a  paradise 
such  as  they  did  not  know  existed  anywhere. 
In  many  of  them,  I  presume,  the  thought  had 
half  formed  itself,  "For  what  have  we  fought, 
when  in  America,  which  still  suffers  the  bur- 
den of  capitalism,  a  common  man  may  have 
everything  that  we  lack?" 
When  I  left  the  building,  I  told  my  wife 


86  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

that  it  was  impossible  to  get  in  touch  with 
the  soldiers  by  speaking  to  them  in  public. 
What  the  Bolshevists  wanted  from  me  was 
propaganda  for  their  own  cause,  and  therefore 
it  was  impossible  for  me  to  speak  the  truth, 
or  get  in  touch  with  the  men  themselves.  The 
best  way  was  to  wait  until  the  opportunity 
presented  itself  to  speak  to  them  in  private. 

One  day  in  the  latter  part  of  June,  on  my 
way  out  from  the  Kremlin,  I  noticed  a  num- 
ber of  soldiers  eagerly  discussing  something. 
I  told  them  that  I  was  an  American  Socialist, 
and  that  I  wanted  to  get  as  much  information 
as  I  could. 

"But  we  have  just  come  back  from  the 
Polish  front,"  one  of  them  said,  "and  are 
trying  to  find  out  what  has  happened  since 
we  left." 

"I  don't  mean  about  Moscow,"  I  replied, 
"but  about  the  army  itself.  For  instance, 
what  do  they  pay  you?" 

"They  pay  us  nothing,"  said  another,  sul- 
lenly. "We  get  600  roubles  a  month,  and  you 
can  just  about  get  a  pound  of  bread  and  a 
handful  of  tobacco  for  that." 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      87 

"But  your  rations,"  I  said.  "'You  get 
bread  from  the  Government,  of  course." 

The  man  laughed.  "Yes!  One  pound  a 
day,  and  I  could  eat  two  pounds  without  stop- 
ping and  then  be  hungry  for  more.  It  has 
been  weeks  since  my  belly  has  been  more  than 
half  full.  If  any  one  wants  to  know  what  the 
Russian  Army  is  like,  you  can  tell  them  it  is 
as  hungry  as  a  wolf." 

"But  you  get  other  things  besides  bread," 
I  objected. 

"A  chunk  of  meat  now  and  then,"  he  said, 
"but  usually  it  makes  you  half  sick  to  eat  it. 
It  has  a  fine,  rich  smell.  Sometimes  they  give 
us  a  little  sugar,  but  most  of  the  time  they 
don't.  Besides  that  we  get  a  little  cabbage 
soup  and  kasha.  That  sounds  all  right,  but 
just  the  same  I  tell  you  I  am  hungry.  We 
are  all  hungry." 

"But  you  have  established  a  government 
of  the  proletariat,"  I  said.  "You  are  fighting 
for  it,  and  you  belong  to  it  yourself.  I  don't 
see  why  you  complain?" 

No  one  answered,  and  I  saw  that  they  were 
beginning  to  be  a  little  frightened  of  me,  so 


88  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  asked  them  about  their  duties.  It  seems  that 
they  were  not  allowed  to  enter  the  city  except 
with  a  permit,  and  could  not  carry  a  revolver 
on  the  streets,  and  that  they  were  regularly 
on  duty,  when  they  were  not  at  the  front,  for 
eight  hours  a  day. 

Several  officers  were  in  the  group,  and  one 
of  them  asked  me  why  I  wanted  to  know  these 
things. 

"Because  I  have  served  myself  in  the  army 
for  over  fifteen  years, "  I  said,  "and  naturally 
I  am  interested  in  the  new  methods." 

"Those  were  good  old  days,"  another  man 
said. 

"Perhaps,"  I  answered,  "but  you  had  no 
liberty  then,  and  after  all  that  is  what  you  are 
fighting  for." 

No  one  replied  to  this,  but  from  the  atti- 
tude of  several  of  the  officers,  I  could  see  that 
they  wanted  to  speak  to  me  alone.  Now  it  was 
time  for  their  drill.  Two  companies  had 
formed  in  front  of  a  nearby  building,  which 
served  as  their  barracks,  and  I  watched  the 
men  lining  up  in  the  old  formation  with  which 
I  was  so  familiar.  One  of  the  officers  came 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      39 

up  to  me  and  asked  me  what  rank  I  had  held 
in  the  army.  When  he  heard  that  I  had  been 
a  lieutenant,  he  suggested  that  I  might  like 
to  drill  them  for  a  moment. 

"But  you  have  probably  made  a  great  many 
changes  since  my  time,"  I  said. 

"Try  it,  anyhow/'  he  urged.  "A  little  of 
the  old-fashioned  methods  wouldn't  do  them 
any  harm."  So  it  ended  by  my  stepping  out 
in  front  of  the  line  and  giving  the  old  com- 
mands. Someone  gave  me  a  gun  and  I  went 
through  the  manoeuvres  that  were  the  fashion 
twenty  years  ago.  It  caused  a  good  deal  of 
laughter,  but  in  some  ways  the  old  methods 
were  much  simpler.  For  example,  when  the 
troops  were  ordered  to  fire,  they  shouldered 
their  guns  and  fired  instantaneously.  Today, 
five  separate  movements  are  involved  before 
the  gun  is  fired.  But  on  the  whole,  they  knew 
their  business  well,  though  they  presented  a 
ragged  and  disreputable  appearance  to  any- 
one who  remembered  the  old  army. 

"When  the  drilling  was  over,  the  officer  took 
me  into  the  barracks,  where  I  talked  to  the 
men  for  a  long  time,  and  I  heard  a  great  deal 


90  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

of  what  they  had  endured  during  the  war  on 
the  German  front.  Certainly  it  had  been 
enough  to  make  any  army  in  the  world  revolt. 
They  had  been  treated  like  cattle,  crowded 
together  in  the  trenches  with  men  who  were 
sick  with  the  worst  infectious  diseases.  They 
had  been  cut  off  from  their  food  supplies 
sometimes  for  whole  days,  and  almost  con- 
stantly suffered  from  the  belief  that  they 
were  being  betrayed  by  the  German  agents 
and  sympathizers  in  their  own  country. 

When  I  left  the  barracks,  the  officer  who 
had  spoken  to  me  before,  followed  me,  and 
with  a  mysterious  air  asked  me  if  he  could 
make  an  appointment  to  speak  to  me  alone 
that  afternoon. 

"I  can  tell  you  something  about  the  real 
state  of  affairs  in  the  army,"  he  said.  "I 
can't  say  anything  to  you  now  because  we 
might  be  seen  together  and  it  is  always  best 
to  be  careful.  I  will  bring  another  officer,  a 
friend  of  mine,  with  me." 

I  told  him  that  if  there  was  any  conspiracy 
on  foot,  I  preferred  not  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  it,  that  my  only  reason  for  agreeing 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      91 

to  meet  him  at  night  would  be  that  he  might 
be  able  to  give  me  information  which  would 
be  of  interest  to  me  and  my  people  when  I 
returned  home. 

"Don't  think  that  I  am  going  to  get  yon 
into  trouble,"  he  went  on.  "I  can't  come  to 
the  hotel  where  you  are  staying  because  I  have 
no  permit  to  enter,  but  if  you  will  meet  me 
after  supper  in  the  park  opposite  the  Imperial 
Theatre,  I  assure  you  that  you  will  never 
regret  it." 

"All  right,  I  will  come,"  I  said,  "though 
I  think  it  is  dangerous.  But  I  will  bring  my 
wife  with  me,  because  I  am  certain  that  if 
she  is  there  it  will  seem  less  suspicious  if  we 
are  recognized." 

But  my  wife,  when  I  told  her,  was  fright- 
ened at  this  mysterious  interview. 

"For  all  you  know,  they  may  be  spies, 
Mitri,"  she  urged,  "who  are  taking  this 
method  of  finding  out  your  opinion  of  the 
Government.  It  is  too  dangerous,  and  for 
some  time  I  have  felt  that  we  are  not  as  safe 
here  as  you  think.  I  have  seen  so  much  mis- 
ery in  this  country  that  I  want  to  get  home." 


92  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"Don't  worry,  mother,"  I  said,  "they 
never  dare  harm  ns.  We  have  come  here  as 
delegates  from  the  United  States,  and  they 
will  have  to  let  us  go  back  safely  whenever 
we  want  to  leave." 

She  was  still  unconvinced,  but  finally  agreed 
that  we  had  better  go  together.  At  eight 
o'clock  we  were  in  the  park.  Suddenly  we 
heard  footsteps  coming  up  behind  us  and 
someone  seized  me  by  the  shoulder.  My  wife 
cried  out  with  fright,  because  she  thought  that 
this  time  we  were  certainly  being  arrested 
But  it  proved  to  be  the  two  officers  whom  I 
had  agreed  to  meet,  and  after  introducing 
them  to  my  wife,  we  paced  up  and  down  the 
park  together  while  they  told  me  their  story, 
which  I  tried  to  interpret  to  her  as  we  went 
along. 

"Comrade,"  the  man  that  I  had  met  that 
afternoon  said,  "what  you  see  here  is  a 
country  enslaved:  the  people  have  lost  their 
freedom,  and  no  one  dares  open  his  mouth  to 
protest.  I  did  all  that  was  in  my  power  to 
bring  about  the  first  revolution,  and  so  did 
my  friend  here.  But  I  would  rather  live  un- 


SOLDIERS    OF    THE    RED    ARMY      93 

der  the  worst  Czar  that  Kussia  has  ever  had 
than  in  what  they  tell  us  is  'Free  Kussia' 
today." 

"Mr.  Schwartz,"  the  other  man  said  sol- 
emnly, "when  you  go  back  to  America,  I  wish 
you  would  tell  as  many  of  your  countrjonen 
as  you  can  what  the  people  of  Russia  have 
endured  at  the  hands  of  the  Bolshevik  Gov- 
ernment. They  have  robbed  our  fathers,  in- 
sulted our  sisters,  and  killed  our  brothers." 

"But  all  that  is  too  vague,"  I  broke  in. 
"Everyone  knows  that  you  cannot  have  a  rev- 
olution without  some  bloodshed." 

"But  it  is  going  on  today,"  he  went  on. 
"Every  day  men  are  arrested  and  shot  with- 
out trial.  Families  are  torn  apart,  men  dis- 
appear and  no  one  knows  what  has  happened 
to  them,  except  that  they  are  never  seen  alive 
again." 

"That  may  be,"  I  said,  "but  I  came  here 
to  hear  about  the  army." 

"It  is  held  together  by  fear,"  he  said,  "just 
as  everything  else  is.  Everywhere  the  men 
are  dissatisfied,  and  although  every  resource 
of  the  Government  is  used  to  keep  up  its 


94  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

morale,  I  do  not  see  how  it  can  be  held  to- 
gether a  great  deal  longer.  The  men  are 
supplied  with  plenty  of  propaganda,  but  they 
cannot  eat  words  and  they  are  getting  to  the 
point  where  they  do  not  believe  what  is  told 
them  any  longer.  Ever  since  you  told  our 
men  this  morning  that  there  was  prosperity 
in  America  and  food  enough  for  everyone, 
they  have  been  arguing  about  the  difference 
between  life  in  Kussia  and  in  your  country." 

I  told  them  that  I  had  not  intended  to  make 
any  trouble,  and  that  that  was  not  my  reason 
for  coming  to  Kussia,  for  I  was  beginning  to 
feel  more  and  more  that  these  officers  might 
be  spies.  I  knew  that  one  of  the  delegates 
had  already  been  arrested  after  he  had  talked 
too  freely  with  a  friendly  officer. 

"No  one's  life  is  safe  here,"  he  went  on. 
"If  you  should  report,  for  instance,  that  we 
asked  you  to  meet  us  here  this  evening,  we 
would  both  of  us  be  shot  inside  of  twenty- 
four  hours.  There  is  less  disorder  in  the 
streets  than  there  was  in  1917,  but  a  system 
of  terrorism  has  grown  up  by  means  of  the 
spies  of  the  Extraordinary  Commission  that 


makes  it  just  as  bad.  There  are  murders  in 
secret  now  instead  of  in  the  open  streets." 

For  an  hour  or  more  they  continued  to  tell 
me  of  what  they  had  been  through  in  the  last 
three  years.  Both  of  them  had  been  in  Petro- 
grad  when  the  cadets  surrendered  to  the  Bol- 
shevists. They  had  seen  scores  of  these  young 
officers  pulled  out  into  the  streets  from  the 
buildings  they  had  been  defending  and  beaten 
to  death  with  the  butts  of  revolvers.  Ordi- 
nary citizens  had  been  dragged  out  of  their 
houses  and  shot  without  mercy.  Armed  Com- 
munists had  gone  to  the  restaurants  and  tea 
shops  to  terrorize  everyone  inside.  Later  on 
in  Moscow,  the  brother  of  one  of  these  men 
for  an  inoffensive  remark  had  been  killed  be- 
fore his  eyes  by  two  of  these  Communist  bul- 
lies and  his  body  had  been  left  to  freeze  in  the 
snow  all  night  before  he  was  allowed  to  take 
it  away  for  burial.  One  of  them  had  seen  the 
massacres  in  Kiev;  the  other  had  been  in  the 
south  and  had  more  horrors  to  tell.  But  it 
would  be  useless  to  relate  them  here. 

Finally  they  left  us,  and  on  the  way  back 
to  the  hotel,  my  wife  and  I  decided  that  we 


96  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

were  in  some  danger.  We  could  not  rid  our- 
selves of  the  suspicion  that  the  men  we  had 
been  speaking  to  had  not  been  sincere  and 
that  they  had  laid  a  trap  for  me.  But  I  had 
said  nothing  that  would  actually  incriminate 
me  except  once,  when  I  remarked  that  the 
Bolshevist  Government  had  no  place  in  the 
twentieth  century.  But  it  must  have  been  ob- 
vious to  them  that  I  was  not  in  sympathy 
with  the  Soviet  Government.  That  alone  was 
enough  to  insure  my  arrest. 


COMMUNISM   ALONG  THE  VOLGA 

next  morning,  since  we  were  still  re- 
solved  to  leave  Kussia  at  the  earliest 
moment,  I  went  to  the  Foreign  Office  and 
asked  Tchicherin  for  passports. 

"Comrade,"  he  said  emphatically,  "you 
must  not  think  of  leaving  before  the  meetings 
of  the  Congress,  which  are  to  be  held  in  a 
short  time.  You  have  come  all  the  way  from 
the  United  States  to  Kussia,  and  we  want  you 
to  be  able  to  assure  the  working  people  of 
America  of  the  solidarity  of  their  brothers 
throughout  the  world. 

"Also,  we  are  sending  a  special  boat  for 
Borne  of  the  delegates  down  the  Volga,  where 
you  will  see  some  excellent  work  that  we  have 
accomplished  in  the  cities  along  the  river.  It 
will  take  you  about  two  weeks,  and  you  will 
be  back  in  time  for  the  first  meeting  of  the 
Congress,  which  will  be  held  in  Petrograd. 

97 


98  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"No!  My  advice  to  you  is  to  stay  a  while 
longer/*  he  said  finally.  "We  cannot  let  yon 
go  so  soon,  comrade.  The  trip  down  the  Volga 
will  be  very  enjoyable  and  you  will  find  that 
places  are  reserved  for  you.  Good-bye  and 
a  pleasant  journey." 

Tchicherin  had  been  polite  enough  out- 
wardly, but  it  was  obvious  that  we  were 
completely  at  his  mercy,  and  that  we  could 
not  leave  Russia  until  he  was  ready  to  let  us 
go.  It  was  amusing  to  be  refused  on  the 
grounds  that  we  had  not  seen  enough  of  the 
country.  Imagine  the  State  Department  of 
the  United  States  refusing  to  allow  a  for- 
eigner to  go  home  until  he  had  visited  the 
Niagara  Falls  or  taken  a  trip  down  the  Mis- 
sissippi! The  invitation  to  go  on  this  pleasure 
trip  on  the  Volga  had  been  actually  a  com- 
mand and  Russia  had  become  a  prison. 

There  were  a  great  many  rumors  at  the 
hotel  about  this  trip,  and  some  of  the  dele- 
gates were  not  anxious  to  go  because  of  vague 
reports  that  there  were  anti-Bolshevist  bands 
along  the  river  who  might  capture  or  blow 
up  the  boat.  Someone  said  that  the  wires  in 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA       99 

that  direction  were  being  constantly  cut.  How- 
ever, I  did  not  take  this  seriously,  and  was 
glad  to  find  that  my  wife  was  anxious  to  go. 
She  was  tired  of  the  monotony  of  life  in  Mos- 
cow and  longed  for  the  green  fields  of  the 
country. 

Finally  the  night  arrived  when  we  were  told 
to  pack  up  and  be  ready  for  the  train  to  Nizni- 
Xovgorod.  Twenty-eight  delegates  assembled 
in  the  station,  mainly  Italian,  French,  English 
and  Dutch.  Two  interpreters  had  been  sent 
with  us,  both  prominent  workers  for  the  Com- 
munist cause,  Comrade  Losovsky,  a  member 
of  the  Central  Committee,  and  Madame  Ade- 
lina  Balabanova,  one  of  their  most  active  prop- 
agandists, and  famous  as  an  orator.  Both 
were  great  linguists,  speaking  German,  French, 
Italian  and  English  with  great  fluency,  and 
having  a  considerable  knowledge  of  many 
other  languages. 

A  special  train  was  made  up  for  ns.  The 
engine  was  decorated  with  red  flags,  long  red 
banners  stretched  along  the  sides  of  the  cars 
with  "Long  live  the  Third  Internationale  and 
the  Proletariat  of  the  "World"  printed  on 


100  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

them.  The  Communists  are  clever  propa- 
gandists, and  they  are  constantly  spreading 
throughout  the  country  by  means  of  propa- 
ganda trains,  and  these  "Red  Specials"  such 
as  ours,  the  idea  that  the  working  people,  the 
masses  of  every  country,  are  behind  the  Sovi- 
et Government.  It  forces  the  people  of  the 
remote  cities  and  villages  to  believe  that  it 
would  be  useless  to  rebel  against  the  present 
government,  since  in  the  end  every  other  na- 
tion will  be  ruled  in  the  same  way. 

As  usual,  the  way  had  been  prepared  for 
us.  At  every  station  we  were  met  by  red  flags 
and  regiments  of  soldiers  with  their  brass 
bands  stretched  along  the  length  of  the  plat- 
forms. At  the  larger  cities  the  trains  stopped 
long  enough  to  give  the  foreign  delegates  time 
to  deliver  addresses  from  the  steps  of  the 
cars,  which  were  interpreted  by  Madame  Bal- 
abanova  and  Comrade  Losovsky.  I  was  the 
only  one  who  was  not  called  upon  repeatedly 
before  the  end  of  the  trip,  for  they  had  evi- 
dently learned  their  lesson.  If  a  delegate 
spoke  to  these  people  in  their  own  tongue  he 
would  have  to  answer  their  questions  and 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     101 

they  did  not  want  the  public  to  know  the 
prosperity  and  the  contentment  of  the  average 
American  workingman.  It  did  not  suit  their 
purposes. 

At  one  or  two  of  these  stations  I  left  the 
train  and  spoke  to  the  people  about  me  in  the 
station,  but  in  each  case  the  rumors  spread 
about  that  one  of  the  delegates  was  from 
America  and  could  speak  Bussian,  and  the 
crowd  about  me  instantly  became  so  dense  that 
even  those  who  were  listening  to  the  interpre- 
ters joined  it.  I  could  see  that  it  was  making 
me  decidedly  unpopular  with  -the  rest,  so  I 
had  to  stop,  but  actually  it  proved  that  the 
people  were  desperately  anxious  for  real  in- 
formation from  the  outside  world,  and  that 
they  were  not  greatly  deluded  by  what  we  in 
America  would  call  "canned  speeches"  of  the 
Bolshevist  orators.  Bolshevist  propaganda  ap- 
pears everywhere;  soap  box  orators  on  the 
street,  posters,  pamphlets,  the  stage  and  all 
of  the  newspapers  have  repeated  the  worn-out 
phrases  so  many  times  during  the  last  three 
years  that  it  was  probably  true  *that  most  of 
them  have  lost  all  of  their  significance.  When. 


UN1VERSPY  Or  CALIFORNIA 


102  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

you  tell  a  man  the  same  tiling  a  hundred  times 
he  may  end  by  believing  it,  but  he  will  cer- 
tainly -be  bored  to  death  by  it. 

The  reception  that  we  had  at  Nizni-Novgo- 
rod  surpassed  any  that  we  had  seen  yet. 
Thousands  of  troops  were  massed  in  the  sta- 
tion with  their  flags  and  brass  bands,  and  we 
were  almost  deafened  by  the  tumult  of  cheers 
and  music.  The  station  was  a  mass  of  red 
bunting,  and  so  were  the  automobiles  which 
took  us  to  a  hotel  dining-room  where  break- 
fast was  awaiting  us.  It  was  a  plentiful  meal, 
for  almost  everything  that  one  could  imagine 
eating  at  that  time  of  the  morning  was  on  the 
table.  Afterwards  reporters  from  the  news- 
papers obtained  interviews  with  us,  and  in 
this  case  mine  was  entirely  satisfactory,  for 
I  knew  that  if  I  said  anything  that  they  did 
not  like  it  would  be  censored  before  it  ap- 
peared in  print.  Later  we  were  driven  about 
the  city,  and  at  noon  reviewed  a  military  pa- 
rade in  our  honor,  which  included  regiments 
of  cavalry  and  artillery. 

Nizni-Novgorod  is  built  upon  a  hill  and  is 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities  in  Russia. 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     103 

It  spreads  ont  on  both  sides  of  the  Volga, 
which  is  crossed  by  picturesque  wooden 
bridges.  As  I  recalled  the  city,  one  of  its 
most  interesting  and  busiest  places  used  to 
be  the  enormous  open  market  in  a  wide 
square,  where  innumerable  objects  were  of- 
fered for  sale  in  the  open  or  in  the  small 
shops  and  passages  along  the  sides.  It  was 
once  one  of  the  largest  markets  in  the  world. 
Now  it  is  used  by  the  Government  as  a  ware- 
house and  is  as  dilapidated  as  everything 
else  is  that  was  once  prosperous  in  Russia. 
The  shop  windows  are  smashed,  the  doors  are 
barred  by  rusty  chains,  and  everywhere  there 
are  soldiers  with  rifles  on  guard.  The  great 
square  is  desolate  and  dirty.  Indeed,  the  en- 
tire business  section  of  the  city  was  in  the 
same  condition  as  in  Petrograd  and  Moscow. 
Not  a  single  store  was  open  and  there  were 
few  people  on  the  streets.  I  spoke  to  one  or 
two  who  were  passing  along  what  was  for- 
merly the  most  important  street  of  the  city, 
but  they  looked  at  me  in  a  frightened  way 
and  hurried  away  without  answering. 

After    the    parade    we    dined    with    several 


104  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

members  of  the  city  administration  and  other 
prominent  Communists.  Again  the  tables  were 
loaded  with  food,  as  if  to  prove  that  the  hun- 
ger of  Russia  was  a  myth.  In  the  evening  we 
went  to  the  opera  house,  where  in  the  inter- 
missions between  the  opera  and  ballet  the  "In- 
ternationale" was  played  so  many  times  that 
one  of  the  delegates  at  my  right  was  almost 
overcome  with  boredom.  Then  there  were 
speeches,  delivered  by  our  friends  the  inter- 
preters in  our  behalf,  in  which  they  expressed 
for  us  our  great  joy  at  being  present  in  Soviet 
Russia,  and  our  hope  that  our  own  people 
would  join  Russia  in  the  world  revolution.  It 
was  with  a  good  deal  of  difficulty  that  I  wa3 
able  to  keep  my  mind  on  what  they  were  say- 
ing so  as  to  be  able  to  interpret  it  to  my  wife, 
for  I  had  heard  it  all  a  great  many  times. 

I  was  startled  when  these  tiresome  speeches 
were  greeted  by  loud  and  enthusiastic  cheers 
from  all  the  soldiers  present.  Later  on  I 
discovered  that  the  enthusiasm  which  our  pres- 
ence met  with  everywhere  on  the  part  of  the 
soldiers  was  simply  a  matter  of  routine  orders. 
The  officers  had  ordered  them  to  chee^  and 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     105 

they  were  simply  obeying  their  commands. 
Our  visit  to  Nizni-Novgorod  and  down  the 
Volga  was  really  a  matter  of  propaganda. 
It  was  intended  that  we  should  be  impressed 
by  the  outbursts  that  greeted  our  arrival 
everywhere,  and  the  people,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  to  be  assured  through  us  that  the  work- 
ers of  the  rest  of  the  world  were  unanimously 
supporting  the  Bolshevist  Government.  In- 
deed, to  a  foreigner  who  could  not  understand 
Russian,  and  so  look  behind  the  scenes,  it 
might  very  well  have  seemed  that  all  that  we 
saw  of  Russia  was  unitedly  in  support  of  the 
Communist  rule. 

On  the  next  day  we  left  the  city  and 
boarded  the  river  steamer  which  was  to  take 
us  down  the  Volga  as  far  as  Saratov.  Day 
after  day  we  slid  along  the  green  banks  of 
"Mother  Volga."  But  it  was  a  different  river 
from  the  one  that  I  had  known  in  the  old 
days.  Gone  were  all  but  a  few  of  the  count- 
less small  steamers  and  barges  and  rafts  that 
used  to  carry  the  traffic  of  the  great  fertile 
plain  where  a  great  quantity  of  the  grain  for 
exporting  to  Europe  was  grown.  Most  of  the 


106  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

wharves  that  used  to  be  piled  with  the  prod- 
ucts of  the  farms  and  with  manufactured 
goods  from  the  cities  had  the  appearance  of 
being  deserted.  This  great  river  thorough- 
fare that  flows  through  the  center  of  Russia 
has  suffered  the  same  fate  as  the  railroads. 
When  we  stopped  for  wood  at  some  of  the 
smaller  villages,  the  peasants  looked  at  us 
sullenly. 

At  every  one  of  the  larger  towns  where 
we  stopped,  we  were  received  in  the  same 
manner.  Parades  of  troops  and  working- 
men;  mass  meetings  in  local  theatres  where 
speeches  were  made  for  us  by  Losovsky  and 
Madame  Balabanova;  band  concerts  and  din- 
ners. Sometimes  it  was  relieved  by  the  pre- 
sentation of  gifts  to  the  delegates.  "We  re- 
ceived boots,  shirts  of  local  manufacture,  Rus- 
sian belts  and  new  samovars,  and  our  cabins 
were  loaded  down  with  spoil.  Comrade  Lo- 
sovsky was  the  keeper  of  the  treasury,  and 
we  were  informed  that  if  we  needed  Soviet 
money  he  would  give  us  all  we  wanted,  and 
square  it  with  his  department  of  the  Govern- 
ment by  adding  it  in  with  his  expense  account. 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     107 

Personally,  I  did  not  make  use  of  this  ex- 
traordinary generosity,  but  most  of  the  other 
delegates  filled  their  pockets  with  paper  rou- 
bles whenever  they  wanted  them.  After  we 
had  stopped  at  half  a  dozen  towns,  it  occurred 
to  me  that  our  expedition  was  not  unlike  a 
vaudeville  troupe  doing  the  rounds  of  the 
Chautauquas  in  the  United  States,  with  Losov- 
sky  as  our  manager  and  Madame  Balabanova 
as  our  press  agent. 

Simbiersk,  where  Nikolai  Lenin  was  born, 
outdid  all  the  others  in  our  honor.  We  ar- 
rived there  on  a  very  hot  day  in  the  middle 
of  July,  and  after  we  had  been  serenaded  by 
brass  bands  and  had  been  given  a  huge  lunch- 
eon on  board  the  boat,  most  of  the  delegates 
were  taken  by  motor  car  to  see  the  city.  My 
wife  and  I,  however,  deserted  the  sightseeing 
party  and  walked  to  the  little  bazaar  of  the 
town.  As  we  made  our  way  up  the  sandy  and 
dusty  hill  which  led  from  the  river  bank,  we 
passed  two  young  women  seated  on  a  pile  of 
heavy  timber  by  the  roadside.  My  wife  called 
my  attention  to  them  because  they  were  so 


108  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

ragged  in  appearance  and  because  one  of  them 
looked  so  ill. 

"Good-day,  sister,"  I  said. 

"Good-day,  sir,"  one  of  them  answered. 
"Are  you  one  of  the  foreign  delegates  from 
Moscow?" 

I  told  her  that  we  had  come  from  America, 
and  the  other  girl  asked  my  wife  in  a  weak 
voice  if  we  had  any  bread  that  we  could  sell. 

I  answered  for  her  that  I  would  be  glad  to 
give  her  some  money  so  that  she  could  buy 
some. 

"We  don't  want  money,"  she  said.  "My 
sister  and  I  have  a  little  ourselves.  But  we 
have  not  been  able  to  find  any  bread  for  sale 
this  morning.  We  have  got  to  walk  home  and 
we  are  very  hungry." 

I  translated  what  she  said  to  my  wife,  who 
was  greatly  distressed  and  urged  me  to  go 
back  to  the  boat  and  bring  them  something  to 
eat.  So  I  rushed  down  the  hill  again  and  into 
the  boat  dining-room  to  get  a  package  of 
bread,  and  brought  it  back  to  them. 

The  sick  girl  fell  on  her  knees  to  thank  my 
wife,  and  both  of  them  began  to  eat  the  coarse, 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     109 

black  bread  like  hungry  wolves.  Mrs.  Schwartz 
was  so  distressed  that  she  could  not  watch 
them,  and  walked  up  the  hill  with  me,  crying. 

As  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  in  the 
bazaar,  since  it  was  as  deserted  as  all  the 
others  that  we  had  visited,  a  useless  monument 
to  former  prosperity,  we  turned  back  toward 
the  boat,  and  almost  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill 
saw  a  group  of  people  standing  around  a  dead 
horse.  Sitting  on  the  ground  by  the  horse's 
head,  was  the  driver,  a  bearded  peasant.  He 
was  crying  bitterly,  like  a  child  who  has 
broken  his  toy.  Several  of  my  companions 
from  the  boat  were  laughing  at  him,  for  there 
was  something  ludicrous  in  the  sight  of  a 
husky  peasant  shedding  tears  for  a  raw-boned 
horse  to  whom  death  had  brought  a  happy 
release  from  his  sufferings. 

"I  wonder  if  he  would  cry  that  way  if  his 
mother-in-law  died?"  I  heard  one  of  the  dele- 
gates say  in  English. 

They  turned  back  to  go  to  the  boat.  I  told 
my  wife,  who  was  always  so  warm-hearted 
that  the  sight  of  suffering  or  grief  made  her 
unhappy,  to  go  back  to  the  boat  with  them. 


110  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Finally  the  poor  devil  of  a  carter  stopped 
his  sobs  and  picked  up  a  rock  from  the  road- 
side. With  this  and  with  a  clumsy  piece  of 
iron  he  tried  desperately  to  tear  off  one  of 
the  horseshoes  from  the  dead  animal.  I  put 
my  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Comrade,"  I  said,  "yon  can't  take  off  the 
shoes  with  that  kind  of  a  tool.  They  are  of 
no  use  to  you  anyhow.'* 

The  poor  creature  looked  up  at  me.  "I  can 
get  a  thousand  roubles  for  them,  and  I  haven't 
a  kopeck  to  my  name,"  and  he  started  in  again 
to  try  to  wrench  off  one  of  the  shoes. 

"Leave  that  alone,"  I  said.  "I  will  give 
you  the  thousand  roubles  myself.  Was  it  your 
horse!" 

"It  was  all  that  I  had  in  the  world,"  he 
said  bitterly,  "and  without  him  I  will  starve. 
I  haven't  even  any  boots  any  longer.  I  sold 
them  yesterday  to  buy  feed  for  him,  and  now 
I  have  got  the  feed  and  no  horse  and  no  boots 
for  next  winter.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  I  cry 
about  it!" 

"How  much  did  you  get  for  your  boots!" 
I  asked. 


COMMUNISM    ALONG   THE   VOLGA     111 

"Fifty  thousand  roubles." 

I  dug  into  my  pocket  and  took  out  a  few 
pieces  of  paper.  "Here  yon  are,"  I  said. 
"Don't  worry  any  more  about  it." 

The  man  looked  at  me  with  a  dazed  and 
frightened  expression,  as  if  he  thought  I  had 
suddenly  gone  mad. 

"Who  are  you!"  he  said,  "and  where  do 
you  get  so  much  money  that  you  can  give  it 
away  to  a  stranger!" 

I  told  him  that  I  had  come  from  America, 
and  that  fifty  thousand  roubles  in  the  money 
of  my  country  was  worth  only  ten  roubles  of 
the  old  Russian  money  before  the  revolution. 

The  man  stuffed  my  money  into  his  pocket 
and  burst  out  into  loud  exclamations  of  joy. 
I  regretted  that  my  friends  from  the  boat  who 
had  laughed  at  him,  had  not  stayed,  for  I 
should  like  to  have  told  them  how  terrible  a 
catastrophe  the  loss  of  his  horse  had  been  to 
this  poor  man.  Doubtless,  when  they  return 
to  their  own  countries  they  will  write  that 
the  Russian  people  are  so  sentimental  and 
have  so  great  a  love  for  their  horses  that  they 
bury  them  with  tears. 


112  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  took  the  carter,  still  dazed  with  the  good 
fortune  that  had  befallen  him,  back  to  the 
town  to  a  restaurant  controlled  by  the  Govern- 
ment, where  free  meals  are  served  to  govern- 
ment workers,  but  where  anyone  could  buy 
food  with  Soviet  roubles.  I  asked  two  or 
three  hungry-looking  men,  who  were  standing 
at  the  door  of  the  restaurant  as  if  they  hoped 
to  satisfy  themselves  by  the  smell  of  food,  to 
have  something  to  eat  with  us.  "Without  a 
word  they  fell  in  line  behind  me,  where  we 
waited  our  turn,  for  the  restaurant  was  run 
on  the  system  of  a  cafeteria. 

I  had  to  put  up  a  deposit  for  all  the  dishes 
and  the  utensils  used;  100  roubles  for  each 
spoon,  cup  or  dish,  and  even  50  roubles  for 
the  bottles  in  which  lemonade  is  served.  I 
was  given  a  round  badge  with  a  number  on 
it,  and  when  we  filed  out  again  the  deposit 
money  was  returned  to  me.  The  commonest 
objects  had  become  of  such  great  value,  that 
the  owner  of  a  restaurant  could  not  run  the 
risk  of  having  them  stolen. 

At  last  we  were  served  with  a  bowl  of 
"kasha,  some  strange  soup,  the  smell  of  which 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     113 

was  so  offensive  that  it  completely  took  away 
my  appetite,  black  bread  and  a  glass  of  weak 
tea.  My  companions,  however,  seemed  to  en- 
joy it  enormously,  and  had  not  the  slightest 
reluctance  to  finish  everything  that  I  had  left. 

I  had  taken  off  my  delegate's  badge  because 
I  did  not  want  to  excite  too  much  curiosity, 
and  we  sat  at  the  table  for  over  an  hour  while 
they  told  me  of  their  increasingly  difficult 
struggles  to  find  work  enough  to  keep  them 
alive,  and  the  final  result  was  that  I  gave 
away  almost  all  the  money  that  I  had  with 
me.  I  realized  that  it  was  useless  charity,  for 
it  would  serve  them  for  only  a  few  days.  But 
it  was  impossible  to  resist  my  desire  to  re- 
lieve their  distress  even  for  a  short  time. 

All  of  them  were  violent  anti-Bolshevists, 
and  they  believed  in  some  vague  way  that  the 
people  of  America,  which  they  thought  of  as 
a  land  where  everyone  was  fabulously  rich, 
would  be  able  to  help  them,  if  they  could  be 
told  of  the  desperate  condition  of  Eussia. 

They  told  me  that  at  night  their  houses 
were  constantly  broken  into  by  Communist 
agents,  who  searched  them  from  cellar  to 


114  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

garret.  If  they  found  that  any  one  ownec! 
more  than  a  single  suit  of  clothes,  or  one  pair 
of  boots,  they  would  be  taken  from  him.  Forty 
thousand  roubles  was  the  limit  of  the  amount 
of  money  they  were  allowed  to  have,  and  they 
were  forbidden  to  own  any  jewelry,  gold 
watches  or  gold  wedding  rings,  or  foreign 
money  of  any  sort.  Often  it  ended  in  a  fighf 
between  the  soldiers  and  the  occupants  of  the 
house  who  were  searched,  which  usually  re- 
sulted in  one  or  two  people  being  shot  while 
the  rest  were  taken  away  to  jail.  In  other 
words,  the  city  government  deprived  every 
man  who  was  not  a  Communist,  of  absolutely 
everything  of  value,  leaving  him  and  his  fam- 
ily only  enough  clothing  to  cover  their  naked- 
ness and  enough  money  to  buy  food  for  five 
or  six  days. 

It  struck  me  that  the  Soviet  Government 
was  the  most  remarkable  institution  in  the 
world,  since  it  assured  the  masses  not  of  pros- 
perity, but  of  poverty,  abject,  hopeless  pov- 
erty. They  can  look  forward  to  no  more  than 
two  or  three  days  of  security;  the  poverty 
that  means  utter  destitution  and  in  which 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     115 

starvation  follows  directly  on  the  heels  of 
sickness  or  temporary  incapacity  to  work. 
Under  the  conditions  of  today  there  is  no 
future  for  the  people  who  live  in  the  cities  of 
Russia.  The  peasant  is  certain  that  the  fertile 
earth  will  bring  him  food  for  the  next  year, 
providing  soldiers  from  the  cities  do  not  rob 
him  of  his  stores;  he  does  not  need  money. 
But  the  city  dweller,  since  he  can  save  noth- 
ing, is  every  day  faced  with  disaster.  Death 
is  his  only  relief  from  the  greatest  fear  of 
man,  the  fear  of  hunger. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  restaurant,  it  oc- 
curred to  me  that  it  would  be  interesting  to 
know  the  other  side  of  the  story,  if  there  was 
one,  so  I  asked  one  of  the  waiters  if  I  could 
see  the  manager  of  the  restaurant. 

"You  will  find  him  upstairs,"  he  said.  "Go 
up  and  knock  at  the  first  door." 

I  did  so  and  found  two  men,  who  were  ob- 
viously of  the  better  class,  sitting  at  a  long 
table  drinking  tea. 

"Good-day,  comrades,"  I  said,  "I  am  one 
of  the  delegates  to  the  Third  International, 
and  have  just  come  in  on  their  steamer." 


116  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"What  do  you  think  of  the  country?"  the 
older  man  asked.  "You  seem  to  be  a  Russian, 
so  I  suppose  that  you  knew  it  in  the  old 
days." 

I  told  him  that  I  had  been  in  Russia  only 
a  short  time. 

"It  isn't  necessary  to  go  far,"  he  said. 
""We  are  just  as  cheerful  and  contented  in 
Simbiersk  as  they  are  in  Moscow.  You  dele- 
gates are  lucky  people,"  he  went  on.  "I  sup- 
pose that  the  Government  has  even  allowed 
you  to  keep  a  watch  on  the  end  of  your  chain. 
They  took  mine  long  ago,  chain  and  all." 

It  was  easy  to  see  that  the  man  was  not  a 
Bolshevist.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me  about  his 
work,  and  apparently  he  was  willing  to  be- 
lieve me  when  I  told  him  that  I  was  not  a 
Communist  myself. 

"I  hold  a  very  distinguished  position,"  he 
said.  "I  am  the  manager  of  this  restaurant. 
My  friend  here  is  in  my  employ,  and  when 
you  came  in  I  was  trying  to  get  him  to  change 
places  with  me.  I  want  him  to  be  the  manager 
of  the  restaurant,  and  I  will  be  delighted  to 
be  his  assistant." 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     117 

I  turned  to  the  other  man.  "Why  don't 
you  take  his  job?"  I  asked.  "It  sounds  like 
a  good  chance." 

"Not  me!"  he  said.  "I  am  not  looking  for 
any  more  trouble  than  I  have  got.  Why 
should  I  take  all  that  responsibility  for  a 
pound  of  bread  a  day  and  two  horrible  meals. 
If  anything  goes  wrong  I  don't  want  to  be 
the  one  to  blame." 

"But  don't  you  have  more  privileges?"  I 
asked  the  manager. 

"I  have  more  responsibility  and  probably 
less  food  than  he  has,"  he  said.  "He  has 
regular  hours  and  I  have  to  stay  here  until 
all  hours  looking  after  the  accounts  and  pre- 
paring for  the  next  day.  If  anything  is  stolen 
I  suffer  for  it.  It  is  a  great  life,  my  friend. 
Once  I  had  everything;  now  I  have  nothing." 

I  asked  him  if  he  spoke  any  other  language 
besides  Kussian,  because  he  had  explained 
that  he  had  been  one  of  the  wealthy,  educated 
class  in  the  old  days. 

"Yes,  I  speak  German  and  French,  but  it 
is  absolutely  of  no  use  to  me  now.  The  man 
who  speaks  the  language  of  the  people,  the 


118  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

ordinary,  ignorant  workman  before  the  revo- 
lution^ is  now  my  master.  An  intelligent  man, 
whose  education  should  make  him  of  some  use, 
can  barely  make  a  living.  I  am  more  fortu- 
nate than  most  of  them." 

He  suddenly  changed  the  subject. 

"Have  you  ever  seen  government  coffee?" 
he  asked. 

I  told  him  that  we  used  to  get  it  in  Moscow. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "this  is  the  sort  of  stuff 
I  have  to  serve  here.  It  is  not  quite  what  you 
delegates  have  been  getting."  He  took  some 
of  it  out  of  a  box  and  showed  me  a  queer, 
dark  substance.  It  was  unlike  anything  that 
I  had  ever  seen  before. 

"You  have  been  talking  freely  with  me,"  I 
said.  "Aren't  you  afraid  that  I  have  been 
spying  on  you  and  will  report  you  to  head- 
quarters?" 

"I  will  tell  you  something,  my  friend,"  he 
replied,  earnestly.  "You  see  in  me  a  man 
who  has  not  the  courage  to  commit  suicide. 
I  tell  you  honestly,  if  after  you  leave  I  am 
arrested  and  shot  in  front  of  a  wall,  I  will 
be  thankful  to  you  for  what  you  have  done 


COMMUNISM    ALONG    THE    VOLGA     119 

for  me,  for  I  am  sick  of  the  life  I  have  to 
lead.  Imagine  what  it  was  like  last  winter. 
It  was  six  below  zero  sometimes  in  my  bed- 
room, and  my  blankets  and  pillows  had  been 
taken  away.  I  covered  myself  with  rags  and 
old  clothes.  My  whole  family,  four  or  five  of 
us,  slept  together  in  one  bed,  so  that  the  heat 
of  our  bodies  might  keep  ns  alive.  We  had 
just  enough  fuel  to  use  for  cooking.  For 
weeks  at  a  time  none  of  us  washed.  When 
the  first  warm  day  came,  I  tell  you  that  I 
could  hardly  believe  that  we  lived  through  it 
and  were  still  alive.  It  is  August  now;  in 
October  the  cold  weather  comes  again.  The 
winter  lasts  for  six  months.  Go  ahead  and 
report  me,  my  friend,  if  you  want  to." 

"If  Trotsky  came  in  here,"  he  went  on  with 
a  smile,  "I  think  I  would  tell  him  the  same 
thing.  We  have  lost  everything  and  we  have 
nothing  to  gain  by  going  on  living.  You  can 
tell  your  friends  in  America  that  you  have  met 
a  man  in  Russia  who  would  be  glad  to  die  if 
he  could.  And  tell  them  that  there  are  a 
million  others  like  me." 

I  thanked  him  as  best  I  could  for  his  con- 


120  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

fidence,  and  after  shaking  hands  with  both  of 
them,  went  back  to  the  boat,  where  I  fonnd 
Mrs.  Schwartz  was  greatly  worried  about  my 
absence.  I  told  her  everything  that  happened, 
and  as  all  the  rest  of  the  party  were  on  board, 
we  left  Simbiersk  in  a  few  minutes  and  headed 
down  the  river  again. 


CHAPTER  VH 

WE    VISIT    TULA    AND    TOLSTOI  *S    HOME 

OAMARA  was  the  next  important  city  that 
^  we  reached.  We  had  been  told  a  good 
deal  about  the  government  colony  for  chil- 
dren that  had  been  started  just  outside  the 
city,  and  after  we  had  been  motored  about 
Samara,  which  lies  three  miles  from  the  river 
bank,  we  were  taken  there  to  inspect  the 
school.  It  had  once  been  the  country  place 
of  a  wealthy  nobleman,  and  we  found  a  plen- 
tiful dinner  waiting  for  us  in  the  dining-room, 
with  the  unusual  dessert  of  strawberries  and 
ice-cream  as  its  climax. 

Later  we  were  taken  to  one  of  the  reception 
rooms,  where  we  were  addressed  in  schoolboy 
fashion  by  a  neatly  dressed  boy,  with  a  big 
red  ribbon  on  his  shoulder,  who  seemed  about 
thirteen.  His  speech,  which  he  rattled  off 
with  great  fluency  and  with  many  gestures, 
was  interpreted  to  us  by  Madame  Balabanova. 

121 


122  THE    VOICE   OF    RUSSIA 

It  had  been  so  obviously  written  for  him  by 
one  of  the  masters  and  was  so  unlike  any- 
thing that  a  boy  might  say  under  the  circum- 
stances, that  it  deserves  to  be  quoted. 

"I  am  very  glad,"  he  said,  "that  I  have 
had  this  chance  to  speak  to  the  world  dele- 
gates of  the  Third  International.  I  want  you 
to  know  how  well  the  Soviet  Government 
treats  us  here.  "We  have  a  beautiful  place 
to  live  in  and  have  fine  clothes  and  excellent 
food,  and  our  education  here  is  given  to  us 
free.  Long  live  the  Soviet  Government !  Long 
live  the  Third  International!  Long  live  the 
Proletariat  of  the  World!" 

Of  course  we  cheered  the  boy,  and  he  fol- 
lowed this  by  speaking  to  the  British  dele- 
gates in  broken  English. 

"Under  the  old  government  we  were  slaves," 
he  exclaimed  this  time.  "We  had  no  school, 
and  we  had  to  work  in  the  factories.  Our 
fathers  and  mothers  were  slaves.  Now  we 
have  liberty  and  we  will  devote  our  lives  to 
Soviet  Russia.  Long  live  the  revolution!" 

We  cheered  him  again,  but  he  did  not  seem 
to  be  at  all  flustered.  He  bowed  to  us,  and 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        123 

departed  as  coolly  as  a  trained  orator,  waving 
a  red  flag  which  he  carried  at  the  end  of  a 
stick. 

We  were  then  shown  over  the  grounds  of 
the  school,  which  were  kept  in  good  order. 
Madame  Balabanova  used  it  as  the  text  for  a 
speech  to  the  delegates,  not  mentioning,  how- 
ever, that  a  capitalist  had  been  responsible 
for  the  beauty  of  the  place,  and  that  there 
was  room  for  a  great  many  more  than  sev- 
enty-five pupils  there,  while  in  the  city  of 
Samara  we  had  seen  hundreds  of  sickly  and 
pale  children  in  the  streets. 

We  went  back  to  one  of  the  classrooms, 
where  one  of  the  teachers  explained  that  they 
had  introduced  self-government  by  the  pupils 
under  the  supervision  of  the  teachers.  IFhey 
are  given  instruction  in  organization  work  and 
appoint  committees  and  officers  for  every  de- 
partment of  school  life.  The  question  of  re- 
ligion is  apparently  never  brought  into  their 
lives.  Communism  takes  the  place  of  religion, 
and  the  teachers  must  be  sincere  Communists 
to  hold  their  positions. 

The  walls  of  the  classrooms  are  hung  with 


124  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

portraits  of  revolutionists  and  of  the  martyrs 
who  had  fallen  for  the  cause.  Many  of  them 
were  copies  of  those  I  had  seen  in  the  Moscow 
school  we  had  visited.  I  asked  a  number  of 
children  whether  they  had  heard  of  George 
Washington.  "When  none  of  them  replied,  I 
asked  them  if  they  had  heard  of  Woodrow 
"Wilson.  A  few  children  raised  their  hands. 

"Do  you  know  who  Abraham  Lincoln  was?'* 
I  asked. 

One  boy  answered,  "Yes,  I  know  about 
Abraham  Lincoln.  He  is  your  father,  isn't 
hef  You  look  like  him." 

I  laughed  and  said,  "You  are  a  good  boy. 
Here  is  a  thousand  roubles  for  that  compli- 
ment. I  am  glad  yon  think  I  resemble  him." 

I  questioned  them  about  Lenin  and  all  of 
them  raised  their  hands.  Trotsky  and  Karl 
Marx  brought  the  same  result;  but  none  of 
them  had  heard  of  Eugene  V.  Debs.  Later, 
one  small  girl  said  that  she  had  heard  of 
Teddy  Roosevelt,  and  Tolstoi  was  familiar  to 
all  of  them. 

In  the  small  towns  and  villages  the  schools 
are  little  wooden  shacks.  The  only  outward 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        125 

change  from  the  old  days  is  that  there  is  a 
red  flag  flying  from  a  big  pole  in  front.  The 
teachers  do  not  seem  to  be  very  strict  with 
the  children,  and  there  is  less  division  be- 
tween the  boys  and  girls  than  at  any  other 
school  that  I  have  ever  seen.  Discipline  is 
very  lax,  and  from  the  confusion  that  reigns 
in  the  classrooms  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
very  much  respect  for  the  teachers.  Once  as 
I  watched  the  children  playing  in  a  school- 
yard I  saw  one  of  the  boys  slapping  a  girl's 
face  until  she  cried,  and  the  teacher  who  stood 
nearby  did  not  seem  to  take  any  notice  of  it. 
A  woman  of  the  neighborhood  told  me  that 
they  wanted  her  to  go  to  school  also,  but  that 
she  was  forty  years  old  and  had  gotten  along 
very  well  without  knowing  how  to  read  or 
write,  so  that  she  had  refused  after  one  or 
two  trials. 

"They  made  me  sing  the  'Internationale' 
until  it  almost  made  me  sick.  All  of  that 
nonsense  is  of  no  use  to  me;  what  I  want  is 
food  and  clothes." 

A  few  days  after  we  had  left  Samara,  a 
holiday  was  declared  to  break  the  monotony 


126  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

of  the  trip.  The  steamer  stopped  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  river  and  we  pnt  out  in  small  boats- 
and  went  in  swimming.  Several  of  ns  crossed 
over  to  the  other  side  of  the  Volga  and  bathed 
from  the  shore.  Afterward  we  lay  on  the 
sand  discussing  the  various  phases  of  our  trip 
as  well  as  we  could,  for  we  had  no  interpreter 
with  us.  But  the  scenery  was  so  beautiful, 
with  the  blue  sky  and  trees  and  the  green, 
sloping  fields,  that  it  was  difficult  to  argue 
seriously  about  anything.  These  woods  and 
meadows  had  been  the  same  when  Ivan  the 
Terrible  ruled  in  Moscow. 

After  we  had  dressed,  I  walked  along  the 
bank  and  saw  two  women  walking  across  the 
fields  toward  the  river.  A  heavy  timber  raft 
which  served  as  a  ferry  was  just  ahead  of  me. 
It  was  a  primitive  affair,  on  which  passengers 
and  carts  are  pulled  across  the  Volga  by 
means  of  a  chain  which  is  connected  to  both 
banks.  The  river  is  about  half  a  mile  wide 
at  this  point,  and  the  passengers  themselves 
furnish  their  own  motive  power  in  pulling  the 
chain. 

I  explained  to  the  two  women  that  I  had 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        127 

come  from  America  to  find  out  as  mnch  as  I 
could  about  Kussia. 

"Won't  you  tell  me  how  you  manage  to 
make  ends  meet  in  these  days?"  I  asked. 

At  first  they  did  not  answer  and  seemed 
frightened  at  my  questions,  but  the  older  one 
finally  said,  "We  get  on  about  as  well  as  any- 
body else.  We  live  in  a  town  two  or  three 
miles  back  and  have  to  work  hard  to  get 
enough  to  eat,  and  we  have  no  clothes  except 
what  we  are  wearing.  We  have  just  come 
from  work,  loading  wagons  with  bags  of  salt. 
We  do  that  for  four  hours,  then  go  home  to 
take  care  of  our  children  for  two  hours,  and 
after  that  go  back  to  work  again." 

"But  I  was  told  that  there  is  very  little  salt 
in  the  country,"  I  said. 

"There  is  plenty  of  it  here,"  she  answered. 
"Do  you  want  to  buy  any?  I  can  sell  you 
a  pound  or  two,  if  you  want  it." 

"Does  the  Government  allow  you  to  sell 
it?"  I  asked. 

"No,  but  we  have  a  little,  and  we  will  sell 
it  to  you  if  you  want  to  buy  it." 

I  did  not  see  that  either  of  them  had  any 


128  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

salt  with  them.  They  had  light  dresses  and 
were  barefooted  and  bareheaded.  I  told  her 
I  would  be  glad  to  buy  all  she  had.  The 
woman  asked  me  for  my  coat  to  put  the  salt 
in,  but  I  gave  her  a  newspaper  and  watched 
her  curiously  when  she  spread  it  on  the 
ground,  loosened  her  belt  and  stood  over  it, 
shaking  herself  vigorously.  The  salt  rattled 
down  on  the  paper.  She  bundled  it  up  with- 
out a  word  and  gave  it  to  me. 

"What  is  it  worth?"  I  asked. 

"About  five  thousand  roubles  a  pound,"  she 
answered. 

I  gave  her  twice  as  much  as  she  had  asked, 
and  tears  of  gratitude  came  into  her  eyes. 
She  divided  the  money  that  I  had  given  her 
with  the  other  woman,  and  thanking  me  again, 
they  hurried  down  to  the  raft  which  was  about 
to  leave.  I  kept  the  salt  in  my  pocket,  and 
during  the  months  that  I  spent  in  prison  later, 
I  was  very  glad  that  I  had  it. 

We  had  been  on  the  Volga  for  fifteen  days, 
and  some  of  the  most  interesting  of  my  expe- 
riences were  the  result  of  deserting  the  official 
expeditions  to  visit  nearby  villages.  The 


WE    VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        129 

others  were  helplessly  tied  to  the  interpreters, 
for  I  was  the  only  one  of  the  entire  group  of 
twenty-eight  delegates  who  conld  speak  Rus- 
sian. Some  of  them  were  very  prominent 
men,  and  I  am  sure  that  they  realized  that 
there  was  another  side  to  the  story  than  the 
one  which  was  being  impressed  upon  them  by 
the  Government.  In  the  capital  it  was  pos- 
sible to  find  many  who  spoke  foreign  lan- 
guages, especially  French,  but  in  these  towns 
along  the  Volga  they  were  utterly  lost  with- 
out Losovsky  or  Madame  Balabanova. 

It  was  strange  to  see  these  men  having  to 
accept  as  true  everything  they  were  told — 
such  men  as  Quelch  and  McLaine  of  England; 
the  famous  Italians,  Serrati  and  Bombacci; 
Cachin,  the  editor  of  the  great  Paris  journal, 
"Humanite,"  and  Sadoul,  a  former  French 
officer  who  had  been  sent  to  Russia  to  inves- 
tigate Bolshevism  for  the  French  Government 
and  who  had  become  a  Communist  and  the 
organizer  of  their  spy  system.  It  was  like 
sending  a  deaf  and  dumb  man  to  investigate 
the  conditions  of  life  in  a  country  that  was 
totally  unfamiliar  to  him. 


130  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Several  times  I  took  a  droshky  to  the  near- 
est village,  while  my  companions  were  attend- 
ing celebrations  that  had  been  carefully  pre- 
pared in  advance,  and  listening  to  speeches  of 
welcome  that  were  nearly  always  alike.  Ar- 
riving in  a  village,  I  would  ask  the  first  man 
I  met  to  notify  his  neighbors  that  I  had  come 
from  America  and  wanted  to  tell  them  of  con- 
ditions outside  of  Eussia,  and  to  ask  them 
questions  about  the  country.  Generally  I  was 
taken  to  the  largest  house  in  the  village,  and 
in  about  twenty  minutes  the  living-room  would 
be  packed  to  suffocation  with  curious  people. 
In  another  half  hour  the  crowd  usually  be- 
came so  dense  outside  of  the  house  that  I  had 
to  repeat  the  proceedings  in  the  open  air. 

There  had  been  less  rain  than  usual  that 
summer,  and  I  found  that  the  peasants  were 
greatly  worried  about  the  condition  of  their 
crops.  As  everyone  knows,  the  peasants  all 
over  Eussia  are  sowing  only  enough  for  their 
immediate  needs,  for  nearly  all  of  the  villages 
near  the  great  cities  had  been  raided  time  and 
time  again  by  soldiers,  who  either  took  their 
products  without  payment  or  paid  them  in  al- 


WE    VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        131 

most  worthless  paper  money.  Consequently, 
all  of  them  expressed  the  greatest  hostility 
toward  the  Government,  though  I  could  not 
see  that  it  would  lead,  at  least  in  that  section 
of  the  country,  to  any  action  on  their  part. 
They  did  not  seem  to  be  greatly  interested  in 
the  politics  of  the  moment.  The  revolution 
has  secured  for  them  what  they  have  been 
looking  for  all  their  lives — the  distribution  of 
the  estates  and  farms  of  the  old  land  holders. 
Now  they  want  to  be  left  alone  to  raise  their 
crops  in  peace.  To  the  majority  of  them,  I 
do  not  think  that  it  greatly  matters  whether 
Russia  is  ruled  by  a  Czar  or  by  a  Communist 
Government,  though  they  are  in  desperate 
need  of  every  kind  of  manufactured  goods, 
from  farm  implements  to  kitchen  utensils  and 
clothing.  Almost  everything  that  was  perish- 
able has  been  used  up  and  must  be  replaced. 
Without  it  the  peasant  villages  of  Russia  are 
slowly  drifting  back  to  the  primitive  life  of 
centuries  ago,  where  everything  that  is  used 
must  be  laboriously  made  by  hand.  But  no 
matter  how  long  it  takes  for  Russia  to  re- 
establish herself,  even  though  the  cities  fall 


132  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

into  complete  barbarism,  the  country  will  still 
live  through  the  peasantry,  who  form  nine- 
tenths  of  the  population,  for  their  fields  are 
fertile  enough  to  feed  not  only  themselves  but 
the  entire  continent  of  Europe. 

Below  Samara  the  Volga  bends  westward, 
and  is  crossed  by  the  main  line  that  runs 
from  Siberia  to  Moscow  and  Petrograd.  At 
this  junction  a  train  was  waiting  to  take  ns 
to  Tula,  where  one  of  the  government  arsenals 
is  situated.  We  arrived  at  that  city  after  a 
long  trip  of  almost  four  hundred  miles,  early 
in  the  morning,  and  were  met  with  the  usual 
enthusiastic  reception  from  the  soldiers,  who 
had  been  waiting  for  us  since  midnight.  "We 
went  to  the  factory,  where  it  was  said  over 
ten  thousand  people  were  engaged  in  making 
rifles  and  machine  guns.  The  workers  were 
massed  together  in  the  yard  outside  the  fac- 
tory, where  a  platform  had  been  erected  for 
the  usual  addresses.  Together,  they  were  not 
unlike  the  workers  from  any  great  factory  in 
America  or  Europe,  but  individually,  many 
of  them  seemed  to  me  to  be  pale  and  worried 
and  lifeless,  with  expressions  that  seemed 


WE    VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        133 

almost  stupid,  due,  I  suppose,  not  only  to  the 
monotony  of  their  work,  'but  to  their  insuffi- 
cient food  and  to  the  bad  conditions  in  their 
homes. 

The  delegates  addressed  them  from  the  plat- 
form, and  the  speeches  were  interpreted  as 
usual  by  Losovsky  and  Madame  Balabanova. 
None  of  the  workers  spoke,  but  stood  packed 
together  listening  dumbly  to  what  these  stran- 
gers from  another  world  had  to  tell  of  their 
enthusiasm  for  Communist  rule.  One  of  the 
Bolshevist  Commissars  in  charge  of  the  fac- 
tory answered  us  in  Eussian,  and  his  speech 
was  in  turn  translated  into  English,  French 
and  German  for  our  benefit.  Altogether,  I 
am  sure  that  our  friends  below  found  it  a 
very  dull  performance  indeed.  The  remarks 
of  this  man  deserve  to  be  quoted. 

"I  want  you  to  tell  the  workingmen  of  the 
rest  of  the  world,"  he  exclaimed,  "that  we 
are  making  two  thousand  rifles  a  day  in  this 
arsenal,  and  that  we  will  keep  on  making  them 
until  bloody  revolution  has  spread  all  over 
the  world.  We  will  not  stop  until  then.  The 
workingmen  of  Eussia  are  united  not  only  in 


134  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

this  factory,  but  in  all  the  factories  of  tl1^ 
country,  and  it  will  not  be  long  before  you 
have  a  Soviet  Government  in  America,  ir. 
France  and  in  England.  We  have  been  your 
example  and  you  can  depend  on  us  for  sup- 
port." 

This  war-like  speech  closed  the  proceedings, 
and  we  filed  out  again  through  the  silent 
crowd.  "VVe  returned  to  the  city,  where  I  later 
found  out  from  a  newspaper  man  that  there 
had  recently  been  a  serious  strike  in  the  arse- 
nal for  higher  wages  and  more  bread,  but  its 
purpose  was  to  create  a  general  strike  in  other 
cities  with  the  idea  of  paralyzing  and  even- 
tually overthrowing  the  Communist  Govern- 
ment. The  plot  was  detected  by  government 
spies  employed  in  the  factory,  and  the  lead- 
ers had  been  arrested  and  shot  within  forty- 
eight  hours.  Naturally,  the  strike  had  stopped, 
though  the  feelings  of  the  workingmen  who 
were  sent  back  to  the  shops  the  next  day 
under  heavy  guard  can  be  well  imagined.  This 
was  reason  enough  for  their  almost  hostile 
attitude  toward  us  that  afternoon,  and  it  ex- 
plained why  one  of  the  workmen,  an  older 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        135 

man  with  a  gray  beard,  had  refused  to  shake 
hands  with  me  as  I  passed  him.  You  cannot 
expect  workmen  to  show  enthusiasm  for  a  gov- 
ernment that  forbids  strikes  and  shoots  their 
leaders  in  cold  blood. 

When  some  of  the  delegates  heard  that  Tol- 
stoi's family  lived  only  seven  or  eight  miles 
from  Tula,  we  unanimously  decided  that  we 
ought  to  pay  a  visit  to  his  home.  Madame 
Balabanova,  however,  objected,  presumably 
because  the  Soviet  Government  had  not  treated 
them  well  and  because  it  was  known  that  Tol- 
stoi's elder  daughter,  Madame  Sukotina,  who 
lived  at  home,  was  decidedly  opposed  to  Com- 
munism. I  managed  to  get  a  number  of  dele- 
gates to  insist  on  seeing  the  place,  whereupon 
our  guardians  told  us  that  it  was  impossible 
because  all  the  automobiles  were  in  use  at  the 
front,  and  the  few  that  were  left  were  broken 
down.  The  reader  understands,  of  course, 
that  the  only  automobiles  in  use  in  Kussia 
are  in  the  service  of  the  Government.  We 
managed,  however,  to  get  hold  of  a  motor 
truck  which  was  used  by  the  army,  and  a 


136  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

score   of  us    started   ont   the   next   morning, 
although  we  had  to  stand  up  all  the  way. 

At  last  we  came  to  the  small  white,  two- 
story  country  house,  in  which  Russia's  great- 
est man  spent  most  of  his  days.  It  lies  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  from  the  village  of 
Yasnaya  Polyana,  and  beyond  it  there  is  a 
small  lake  where  Tolstoi  drifted  about  in  -his 
boat.  At  the  back  of  the  house  are  .the  stables 
and  a  cottage  for  the  servants.  We  found  Ma- 
dame Sukotina  and  her  daughter,  who  had  no 
idea  that  we  were  coming,  at  lunch  in  the 
sunny  dining-room.  She  asked  me  to  tell  the 
others  that  she  regretted  that  she  could  not 
invite  us  to  dine  with  them,  as  she  would  have 
done  in  the  old  days,  but  we  must  understand 
that  they  were  fortunate  to  be  able  to  have 
enough  for  themselves.  I  replied  that  we  had 
only  come  for  a  friendly  visit,  and  io  take  this 
opportunity  to  pay  our  respects  to  the  grave 
of  her  father.  Presently  we  started  out.  I 
walked  with  her  daughter,  a  beautiful  young 
girl  of  about  thirteen,  who  spoke  French  and 
German  fluently,  as  well  as  Russian,  while 
her  mother  spoke  in  French  to  the  delegates. 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        137 

My  young  companion  told  me  that  the  Red 
soldiers  had  come  there  not  long  ago  and  had 
tried  to  take  away  the  home  where  she  and 
her  grandfather  before  her  had  been  born,  but 
her  mother  had  protested  and  sent  word  to 
Lenin. 

"Finally,"  she  said,  "they  gave  us  back  the 
house,  but  not  the  land.  They  have  allowed 
us  to  keep  some  of  our  servants  who  did  not 
want  to  go  away,  but  everything  that  is  grown 
on  the  estate  is  taken  by  the  Government,  and 
we  have  to  get  our  food  from  them  like  every- 
one else." 

I  asked  about  what  the  people  in  the  vil- 
lage thought  about  the  Bolshevists. 

"If  they  treat  the  family  of  Count  Tolstoi 
in  this  way,"  she  answered,  "I  can  imagine 
what  they  do  to  others  who  have  no  claim  on 
their  sympathies.  But  you  ought  to  go  and 
talk  to  them  yourself." 

Finally,  we  came  to  a  clump  of  four  immense 
trees  at  the  edge  of  a  little  wood,  and  in  the 
center  was  the  grave  of  the  great  old  Eussian 
who  had  died  of  a  broken  heart.  His  daugh- 


138  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

ter  told  us  why  he  had  been  buried  in  that 
spot. 

"When  father  was  a  young  boy,  he  had  a 
cousin  with  whom  he  used  to  play.  One, day 
he  said,  'Let  both  of  us  write  something  on  a 
stick  and  bury  it  here.  "\Vhen  one  of  us  dies 
the  other,  who  will  find  this  message,  will  try 
to  live  up  to  it  for  the  rest  of  his  life.'  My 
father  had  written  *  Believe  in  the  truth,'  and 
later  he  expressed  a  wish  to  be  buried  between 
these  trees. " 

Madame  Sukotina  told  us  many  other  things 
about  Tolstoi's  life;  that  he  used  to  have  his 
regular  h'ours  for  visitors,  for  writing  and  for 
working,  and  for  reading  the  Bible,  which  he 
did  constantly.  Later  she  showed  us  his  bed- 
room exactly  as  it  had  been  left  when  he  last 
slept  there.  Even  the  clock  had  never  been 
wound  up  again.  The  room  was  very  plainly 
furnished,  with  a  wash-stand,  a  picture,  two 
chairs  and  a  small  bed. 

Then  we  were  taken  up  to  his  private  study. 
Here  were  many  portraits  and  photographs  of 
himself  when  he  was  an  army  officer,  and 
others  of  dozens  of  writers  from  all  over  the 


WE   VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        139 

world.  We  also  visited  his  library  where 
there  were  hundreds  of  books  which  Tolstoi's 
daughter  informed  us  were  never  dusted. 
"Father  used  to  read  them  constantly,"  she 
said. 

Afterwards  we  walked  out  in  the  grounds 
and  sat  down  on  the  grass.  Tolstoi's  daughter 
asked  me  when  I  intended  to  return  to  Amer- 
ica, and  when  I  answered  that  I  would  leave 
as  soon  as  the  meetings  of  the  Third  Inter- 
national were  over,  she  urged  me  to  take  a 
letter  addressed  to  her  brother,  with  me.  Un- 
fortunately, it  was  found  among  my  papers 
when  I  was  arrested,  and  I  have  always  sin- 
cerely hoped  that  there  was  nothing  in  it 
which  would  injure  her  in  any  way  in  the 
eyes  of  the  authorities.  She  walked  out  to 
the  motor  truck  which  was  ready  to  take  us 
back,  with  my  wife,  who  was  the  only  woman 
in  the  party,  and  told  her  the  distressing 
moral  conditions  in  the  little  village,  the  roofs 
of  which  we  could  see  in  the  distance.  It 
seems  that  the  new  ideas  had  altered  the  old 
ideas  of  the  peasantry.  They  were  fast  losing 
their  belief  in  religion,  and  the  effect  was 


140  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

most  marked  on  the  conduct  of  the  girls  and 
young  women  in  the  villages. 

On  our  way  back,  as  the  truck  was  bumping 
along  a  rough,  narrow  road,  we  had  to  pass 
a  peasant  and  his  wife  who  were  driving  in 
the  opposite  direction.  Their  horse  took 
fright  and  dashed  by  us,  overturning  the  cart 
and  throwing  the  occupants  onto  the  road. 
The  driver  of  the  truck  did  not  even  look 
back,  but  plowed  ahead,  refusing  to  stop.  I 
argued  with  him  about  it,  but  he  growled  out 
that  it  didn't  matter  whether  they  were  killed 
or  not,  there  were  plenty  more  like  them.  In 
the  old  Eussia,  the  man  would  have  stopped  to 
rescue  them  as  a  matter  of  course,  for  the 
Eussian  is  no  more  brutal  than  the  average 
man  in  any  other  country,  but  the  ideals  of 
this  new  Eussia  have  made  men  callous  to  the 
sufferings  of  others;  human  life  has  become 
of  little  account. 

"We  left  Tula  in  the  evening.  Another  band 
was  waiting  to  serenade  us  outside  of  the 
government  dining  hall,  and  during  dinner, 
Madame  Balabanova  delivered  an  address  on 
the  splendid  morality  of  the  Eussian  people 


/    \ 


WE    VISIT    TOLSTOI'S    HOME        141 

under  the  teachings  of  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment. What  she  said  contrasted  so  violently 
with  what  I  myself  had  seen,  and  with  what 
Tolstoi's  daughter  told  my  wife,  that  a  few 
words  about  this  extraordinary  woman  who 
had  accompanied  us  on  our  trip,  will  not  be 
out  of  place. 

Madame  Balabanova,  as  I  have  said,  is  an 
excellent  orator,  and  as  a  propagandist  is  of 
great  value  to  the  Government.  But  her  con- 
duct on  the  trip  was  startling,  to  say  the  least, 
when  one  considers  that  she  had  been  chosen 
by  the  Government  to  accompany  the  delegates 
of  so  many  foreign  countries,  whose  good-will 
was  very  necessary  in  spreading  the  ideas  of 
Communism  abroad.  During  the  warm  days 
of  July,  on  the  Volga,  she  wore  a  voluminous 
red  wrapper,  most  of  the  time  on  board  the 
boat,  and  went  about  in  this  garment  without 
shoes  or  stockings.  On  several  occasions  she 
addressed  the  crowds  of  curious  peasants  and 
town  people  crowded  below  us  on  the  banks, 
with  this  wrapper  as  her  only  covering. 

Though  she  is  a  woman  of  about  forty-five, 
with  thick  lips  and  a  heavy  nose,  she  has  an 


142  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

extraordinary  air  of  vitality,  which  shows  in 
her  small,  piercing  eyes.  Partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  Italy  was  on  the  verge  of  an  out- 
break, Madame  Balabanova  was  extremely  at- 
tentive to  the  Italian  delegates.  She  spoke 
Italian  perfectly  and  had  lived  there  for  some 
time.  Indeed,  her  interest  in  them  had  become 
so  intimate,  that  after  I  had  listened  to  her 
remarks  on  the  newly  acquired  virtue  of  the 
Russian  people  under  the  influence  of  Com- 
munist ideals,  I  was  so  astonished  and  dis- 
gusted by  her  hypocrisy,  that  I  left  the  dining 
hall  and  did  not  return  until  she  had  finished. 
On  the  following  day  we  headed  for  Moscow 
by  train,  stopping  at  several  cities  en  route, 
where  the  usual  receptions,  banquets  and  gala 
performances  at  the  local  theatres  were  re- 
peated. 


CHAPTER   Vin 

LIFE   IN    MOSCOW 

TN  Moscow  it  was  rumored  that  the  first 
•*•  meeting  of  the  Third  International  was  to 
be  held  in  Petrograd  on  the  19th  of  July,  and 
I  spent  the  intervening  time  in  going  about 
Moscow,  as  far  as  some  of  the  villages  on  the 
outskirts.  One  day  I  visited  an  army  ware- 
house, where  enormous  quantities  of  uniforms, 
boots  and  other  clothing  were  stored.  I  was 
told  that  in  Moscow,  Petrograd  and  other 
centers,  there  were  enough  supplies  of  food 
stored  up  for  the  army  for  over  two  years. 
Almost  all  of  the  productive  energy  of  Kus- 
sia  is  diverted  to  the  army. 

Our  evenings  were  taken  up  with  official 
entertainments,  and  one  night  after  we  had 
heard  Shaliapin  sing  before  an  audience  of 
Government  Commissars  and  delegates,  and 
were  returning  to  the  hotel  at  about  three  in 

143 


144  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

the  morning,  for  the  concert  had  been  followed 
by  a  banquet,  I  noticed  a  woman  sweeping  the 
streets,  and  was  struck  by  the  contrast  with 
that  which  we  had  just  left,  where  we  had 
had  the  unusual  luxuries  of  white  bread,  butter 
and  sugar,  and  even  ice  cream  and  wine  and 
candy. 

I  spoke  to  the  woman,  who  kept  on  vigor- 
ously raising  the  dust  with  her  broom. 

"I  have  got  seven  blocks  to  finish  before 
six  o'clock,"  she  explained,  "and  although 
I  am  so  tired,  I  don't  dare  to  stop  to  rest. 
My  husband  is  sick,  so  I  have  to  work  at  night 
in  order  to  take  care  of  him  in  the  day  time." 

"Do  you  get  enough  to  eat!"  I  asked  her. 

"They  only  allow  me  half  a  pound  of  bread 
a  day,  and  we  have  sold  everything  we  had 
to  get  enough  food  to  keep  us  alive.  My  pay 
from  the  Government  has  to  do  for  the  whole 
family  since  my  husband  cannot  work.  "We 
have  two  children,  too,  and  one  of  them  will 
be  thirteen  tomorrow." 

"Can't  your  children  help  you?"  I  asked 
her. 

"They  can't  earn  any  wages  until  they  are 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  145 

sixteen,"  she  said,  "but  they  try  to  earn  a 
little  by  selling  cigarettes  on  the  street.  I 
can 't  do  anything  with  my  girl  any  more.  This 
awful  life  has  spoiled  her  and  she  is  beginning 
to  run  around  with  older  men.  It  breaks  my 
heart,  but  she  won't  listen  to  me  any  longer." 

I  told  her  that  if  she  would  tell  me  where 
she  lived,  I  would  get  her  something  to  eat 
for  her  boy's  birthday.  She  dropped  her 
broom  in  astonishment  and  asked  me  who  I 
was. 

I  told  her  that  I  was  an  American,  and 
agreed  to  meet  her  the  following  morning  at 
eleven  o'clock  at  the  same  place,  with  food 
enough  for  their  dinner. 

The  poor  woman  cried  when  we  left  her. 
"God  bless  you!"  she  exclaimed. 

The  next  morning  I  made  up  a  package  of 
bread,  caviar,  cheese,  sugar  and  salt,  and 
found  her  waiting  for  me.  My  wife  wanted 
to  give  it  to  her  with  her  own  hands,  and  as 
she  did  so,  the  poor  woman  fell  on  her  knees 
and  kissed  her  shoes.  She  told  me  how  ex- 
cited her  children  were  at  the  idea  of  having 
a  birthday  dinner  with  enough  to  eat,  and 


146  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

begged  us  to  come  and  see  them  at  her  home 
the  following  evening. 

It  was  a  miserable  hovel,  with  a  door  so 
low  that  I  had  to  bend  my  head  to  enter.  In- 
side, the  sick  man  was  lying  on  a  wooden  box 
covered  with  a  straw  mattress.  A  ragged 
coat  took  the  place  of  bed  clothes.  The  chil- 
dren were  in  the  room,  and  the  girl,  a  child 
of  about  twelve,  sat  callously  smoking  a  ciga- 
rette, while  her  parents  told  me  that  they  had 
completely  lost  control  of  her  and  that  she 
stayed  out  till  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, refusing  to  tell  them  where  she  had  been. 

Her  father  was  crippled  by  rheumatism,  I 
discovered. 

"This  is  what  the  Communists  have  done 
for  us,"  he  cried.  "I  was  once  the  owner 
of  a  hotel  in  Moscow,  but  they  took  that  away 
from  me  along  with  everything  else.  My 
eldest  son  was  killed  in  the  war,  and  now  I 
am  dying  by  degrees.  God  knows  what  will 
happen  to  the  rest  of  us.  My  wife  can't  live 
through  much  more  of  this  night  work.  Last 
winter  she  used  to  come  home  every  morning 
half  frozen  and  so  exhausted  that  she  could 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  147 

hardly  eat.  What  sort  of  life  will  my  children 
have  when  we  are  gone?  My  son  will  be  a 
common  laborer,  and  my  daughter  is  already 
on  the  streets." 

Mrs.  Schwartz  was  so  much  moved  by  the 
misery  of  this  wretched  family  that  she  could 
not  endure  it  any  longer,  and  after  leaving 
them  some  money  we  went  out  together  with 
a  sigh  of  relief. 

On  the  following  day  we  were  walking  in 
the  park  opposite  the  Imperial  Theatre,  and 
I  noticed  that  two  well  dressed  men  were  dis- 
cussing us.  Finally,  one  of  them  stopped  me 
on  the  pretext  of  asking  me  for  a  match  and 
questioned  me  as  to  what  we  were  doing  in 
Russia. 

He  told  me  that  he  was  a  Communist  and 
the  Governor  of  a  province.  I  had  heard  of 
him  before,  but  do  not  think  it  wise  to  use 
his  name.  The  Governor  and  his  friend  were 
greatly  interested  in  the  conditions  of  Amer- 
ica, so  I  told  him  as  briefly  as  I  could  of  the 
position  of  the  Socialists  and  of  the  Labor 
movement  when  I  left. 

"Are  you  a  Communist?"  he  asked,  and  in 


148  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

reply  I  told  him  that  I  had  come  to  Russia 
as  a  representative  of  the  Socialist  Party  of 
America. 

"Do  yon  believe  in  the  Communist  Govern- 
ment as  you  have  seen  it  in  Russia?" 

"That  is  a  pretty  direct  question  to  ask  of 
a  stranger,"  I  said,  "and  it  is  difficult  to 
answer  it  offhand." 

"Well,  if  you  are  still  doubtful  as  to  what 
Communism  means,  I  will  tell  you.  Let  me 
ask  you  if  you  believe  in  God?" 

"I  have  never  heard  of  a  man  being  hung 
for  that,"  I  answered.  "Yes,  I  do.  Are  all 
the  Communists  atheists?" 

"Look  here,"  he  went  on,  "you  are  repre- 
senting the  Socialist  Party  from  America,  and 
I  want  to  ask  you  if  you  believe  in  a  govern- 
ment that  does  not  allow  you  free  speech,  free 
press  and  a  free  religion." 

I  was  afraid  to  commit  myself,  so  I  said, 
"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  the  Soviet 
Government  means  the  opposite  of  that!" 

He  did  not  answer  but  pulled  out  from  his 
pocket  a  little  chain  with  a  cross  attached. 
"Look  at  this,"  he  exclaimed.  "My  mother 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  149 

gave  me  this  when  I  was  a  little  boy  and  told 
me  to  wear  it  always.  She  is  religious  and 
is  greatly  hurt  because  I  never  go  to  church 
with  her  any  longer.  As  a  member  of  the 
Communist  Government  I  have  to  hide  this 
cross  as  if  it  were  a  crime,  and  I  don't  dare 
be  seen  entering  a  church  with  her.  It  might 
mean  the  end  of  my  position  and  the  end  of 
me.  Do  you  think  that  is  right?" 

I  refused  to  answer,  and  the  Governor's 
friend  asked  him  why  he  insisted  so  strongly 
on  knowing  what  I  thought. 

"I  want  his  answer,"  he  insisted,  and  again 
repeated,  "Is  that  right?" 

I  suspected  that  the  man  was  a  spy;  but 
I  admitted  that  it  was  both  wrong  and  very 
foolish  if  it  was  true. 

"That  is  what  Bolshevism  is,"  he  went  on. 
"They  have  broken  up  our  lives,  our  church, 
and  I,  who  am  the  Governor  of  a  province  and 
a  Communist  myself,  do  not  hesitate  to  tell 
you  that." 

"If  that  is  the  case,  the  Government  will 
have  a  hard  road  to  travel,"  I  replied,  and 
turned  my  back  on  him  and  walked  away.  I 


150  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

was  afraid  that  it  was  a  trap  that  had  been 
laid  for  me,  for  I  felt  certain  that  Madame 
Balabanova  had  reported  my  lack  of  interest 
in  the  official  ceremonies  on  the  trip  and  my 
habit  of  investigating  conditions  personally. 
Later,  I  became  convinced  that  the  man  was 
sincere,  since  Russia  is  full  of  extraordinary 
contrasts.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  are  many 
men  who  are  in  high  positions  in  the  Bolshev- 
ist Government  who  are  bitterly  opposed  to 
the  methods  Lenin  uses  in  forcing  it  on  the 
country. 

Coming  back  from  this  curious  meeting,  we 
passed  the  building  occupied  by  the  Extraor- 
dinary Commission,  which  literally  holds  the 
life  of  every  Russian  in  its  hand,  for  it  can 
condemn  a  man  to  prison  or  to  death  without 
publicity  and  without  trial.  Its  spies  are 
everywhere,  and  the  three  men  who  are  in 
arbitrary  control  of  the  system  are  more  feared 
than  was  the  Czar's  Chief  of  Police  before  the 
revolution.  On  the  steps  of  the  building  I 
saw  a  group  of  women  surrounding  a  young 
woman  who  was  crying  bitterly.  A  soldier 
came  up  to  them  and  asked  them  roughly  to 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  151 

move  on,  so  I  asked  one  of  them  what  the 
trouble  was. 

"You  see  the  poor  girl  who  is  crying,"  she 
answered.  "She  lives  near  me,  and  last  night 
her  husband  ran  away  from  the  camp  where 
he  was  stationed,  about  thirty  miles  from  Mos- 
cow. They  had  not  been  married  for  very 
long.  He  came  in  about  one  o'clock,  and  at 
three  some  one  knocked,  at  the  door.  When 
it  was  not  opened  immediately,  soldiers  broke 
it  in  with  their  rifles,  ordered  him  to  dress, 
searched  the  house  and  took  him  away  with 
them.  This  morning  his  wife  tried  to  find 
him  at  the  prison,  and  then  came  here.  One 
of  the  Commissars  told  her  that  he  had  been 
shot  at  dawn." 

This  is  but  one  of  the  scattered  incidents 
that  happen  in  the  capital  of  Russia  today  un- 
der the  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat. 

On  another  day  I  passed  by  a  hospital  which 
received  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  from  the 
front.  One  of  the  men  told  me  that  before 
daybreak  that  morning,  fifty  men  had  been 
shot  in  the  yard  at  the  back  of  one  of  the 
buildings.  The  Government  had  suddenly  ar- 


152  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

rested  thirty-nine  soldiers  and  eleven  doctors 
on  the  charge  that  the  doctors  had  been  receiv- 
ing money  from  soldiers  to  declare  them  unfit 
for  service  in  the  army,  while  the  soldiers  had 
been  shot  for  bribery.  He  said  that  one  of 
the  men  who  had  no  money  to  free  himself 
from  the  army  by  this  means  had  reported 
this  to  the  Extraordinary  Commission,  who 
had  arrested  every  one  involved  and  had  killed 
them  without  trial  on  the  following  morning. 
I  asked  several  people  if  they  knew  anything 
about  this  incident,  and  finally  the  street 
sweeper,  a  woman,  informed  me  that  early  in 
the  morning  a  truck  had  driven  up  to  the 
hospital  and  had  been  loaded  with  barrels. 
She  had  been  able  to  see  into  one  of  them, 
which  had  been  packed  with  dead  bodies. 

Everyone  knows  that  these  sudden  and  mys- 
terious executions  are  carried  out  every  day. 
The  Bolshevist  official  paper,  the  "Pravda," 
admitted  in  July  that  in  fifty-six  days,  eight 
hundred  people  had  been  shot  in  Moscow 
alone,  a  daily  average  of  fifteen  to  sixteen 
executions.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  very 
air  of  Moscow  seems  filled  with  suspicion  and 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  153 

fear  ?  A  great  part  of  the  population  is  driven 
by  hunger  to  commit  acts  that  are  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  theories  on  which  the  Com- 
munist Government  rests.  Moscow  is  a  ceme- 
tery, a  nest  of  every  disease,  where  misery 
and  starvation  stand  behind  every  man  who 
is  not  one  of  the  elect,  and  no  man  can  ap- 
peal to  justice,  for  neither  justice  nor  mercy 
exist. 

During  one  of  these  days  while  we  were 
waiting  for  the  Third  International  to  open 
its  session  in  Petrograd,  we  drove  out  to  visit 
Prince  Peter  Kropotkin,  the  famous  old  anar- 
chist, who  was  perhaps  one  of  Russia's  great- 
est men.  He  has  died  since  then  and  he  was 
very  old  and  weak  when  we  saw  him.  He  was 
reclining  in  a  big  invalid's  chair,  dressed  in 
a  morning  coat.  He  coughed  a  good  deal  while 
we  were  there,  and  I  was  certain  that  he 
would  not  live  long.  We  conversed  in  Eng- 
lish, which  he  spoke  as  well  as  he  did  Russian. 

Prince  Kropotkin  asked  me  not  to  quote 
him  while  I  was  in  Russia,  and  after  I  had 
promised  that  I  would  not  do  so,  he  went  on 
to  say  that  he  had  returned  to  his  own  country 


154  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

almost  at  the  same  time  that  Lenin  came  in 
through  Germany  in  March,  1917. 

"AYhen  I  saw  Lenin  and  the  others  who  had 
gathered  around  him,"  he  said,  "I  knew  that 
my  country  would  bleed  under  their  manage- 
ment ;  and  I  was  right.  I  knew  that  they  would 
bring  misery  and  confusion  with  them. 

"Now  I  am  too  old  and  sick  to  do  anything 
more  for  my  people,  but  if  I  could  live  my  life 
over  again  I  would  fight  Bolshevism  to  the 
bitter  end.  It  is  now  the  duty  of  you  who 
are  still  safe  from  it  to  do  your  share.  I  have 
done  all  I  could  do  for  humanity.  That  is  all 
I  have  to  say." 

After  a  long  silence,  he  went  on,  "I  am 
sorry  that  I  cannot  offer  you  any  hospitality, 
but  we  have  nothing  in  the  house  but  tea 
without  sugar  and  a  little  bread  and  fish." 
I  thanked  him  and  told  him  that  we  delegates 
had  more  to  eat  than  we  wanted. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "it  is  not  changed.  One 
man  still  gets  four  meals  a  day  and  another 
one.  That  is  not  what  those  who  came  before 
us  gave  their  lives  for.  TVhen  you  return  to 
the  United  States,  tell  them  what  old  Kropot- 


LIFE    IN    MOSCOW  155 

kin  said  to  you,  and  if  you  pass  through  Eng- 
land, give  that  country  my  best  wishes,  for 
I  am  very  fond  of  England  and  the  English 
people." 

There  was  another  silence,  and  my  wife, 
who  had  been  greatly  impressed  by  what  he 
had  said,  nodded  to  me  and  we  went  out 
together. 

When  we  returned  to  Moscow,  I  found  a 
notice  waiting  for  me  at  the  hotel,  to  prepare 
for  the  journey  to  Petrograd,  since  the  con- 
vention was  to  open  immediately.  We  ex- 
pected to  leave  on  the  next  day,  but  it  was 
finally  five  days  before  word  was  sent  us  that 
the  train  was  ready.  The  other  delegates  were 
waiting  also,  and  were  very  much  disturbed 
by  the  delay.  It  was  rumored  that  there  had 
been  a  general  strike  on  the  railroads  which 
had  tied  up  all  the  trains  and  that  the  wires 
were  also  down. 

We  finally  left  Moscow  quietly,  in  auto- 
mobiles that  were  separated  from  each  other 
by  several  blocks.  I  presume  that  they  feared 
that  some  demonstration  might  be  made 
against  us.  Several  hundred  delegates  and 


156  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Commissars  finally  arrived  at  the  almost  de- 
serted station,  where  we  found  the  two  special 
trains  decorated  with  red  flags.  The  foreign 
delegates  and  the  Russian  representatives 
were  placed  in  separate  trains.  After  an  un- 
explained delay  of  several  hours  we  started, 
and  did  not  stop  until  we  arrived  in  Petro- 
grad,  although  when  we  passed  stations  along 
the  route  the  train  slowed  down  while  the 
soldiers  who  were  lined  up  along  the  platform 
cheered  us. 


CHAPTER   IX 


THE     THIRD     INTERNATIONAL  —  WE     ARE     ARRESTED 


reception  we  received  in  Petrograd 
excelled  anything  we  had  seen  in  Russia. 

"When  we  left  the  station  after  nine  o'clock, 
the  broad  Nevsky  Prospect  was  massed  with 
people  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  They 
packed  every  window  and  were  standing  on 
the  roofs.  We  drove  between  solid  lines  of 
soldiers,  passing  regiments  of  artillery  and 
cavalry,  as  if  we  were  attending  a  military 
review.  Bands  marched  in  front  of  us  playing 
the  "Internationale,"  but  their  music  was 
drowned  by  the  roars  of  the  crowds.  Every- 
where were  banners  with  "Welcome  to  the 
World  Delegates"  on  them. 

At  last  we  arrived  at  the  building  in  which 
the  meetings  of  the  Duma  were  formerly  held, 
and  which  had  now  become  the  center  of  world 
revolution.  The  delegates  were  seated  in  the 

157 


158  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

great  assembly  hall,  while  the  important  Com- 
munists and  Government  Commissars,  who 
were  not  delegates  to  the  Congress,  were  in 
the  balcony  above.  On  the  desk  before  each 
delegate  were  portfolios  and  pencils,  and  a 
leather  covered  notebook  printed  in  gold  with 
" Second  Congress  of  the  Third  International." 
The  Bureau  of  Propaganda  had  not  neglected 
this  opportunity.  The  desks  were  covered 
with  pamphlets  and  photographs  of  govern- 
ment officers,  palaces  and  graves  and  martyrs, 
and  even  the  morning  paper,  with  glowing 
descriptions  of  the  events  of  the  day.  We 
waited  for  about  three  hours  for  the  arrival  of 
Lenin,  who  was  to  open  the  first  session,  but 
delays  of  this  nature  are  expected  in  Russia, 
where  official  business  often  begins  late  in  the 
afternoon  and  is  continued  until  late  at  night. 
The  Hall  was  badly  ventilated  and  it  soon 
became  unbearably  hot.  Lenin  arrived  shortly 
after  one,  and  took  his  seat  behind  the  ros- 
trum on  the  platform.  Everyone  rose  and 
cheered  him  wildly  for  five  minutes.  Zinoviev, 
the  International  President  of  the  Communist 
Party,  began  the  proceedings  of  the  day. 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  159 

"In  the  name  of  the  Central  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Government  of  Russia,"  he  said, 
"I  declare  that  the  work  of  the  Second  Con- 
gress of  the  Third  International  will  now 
begin.  Red  Petrograd  has  opened  its  arms 
to  receive  the  best  fighters  and  the  best  blood 
of  the  Proletariat  of  the  World." 

He  went  on  to  speak  of  the  martyrs  that 
had  fallen  in  the  struggle  during  the  first  and 
second  revolution.  He  spoke  of  the  death  of 
Karl  Liebknecht  and  Rosa  Luxembourg  of 
Germany,  and  others  of  their  comrades  who 
had  been  imprisoned  by  the  capitalistic  class 
throughout  the  world.  As  he  spoke  of  the 
well-known  Communists  who  had  fallen  in 
Russia  and  abroad,  everyone  rose  while  the 
music  played  a  few  strains  of  a  funeral  march. 
It  was  a  very  impressive  ceremony,  for  these 
men  who  were  in  charge  of  the  Government  of 
Russia  had  learned  the  value  of  dramatic 
effects  of  this  kind. 

When  we  were  seated,  Zinoviev  went  on  to 
describe  what  he  called  the  "War  of  the 
Capitalists"  of  1914.  It  had  been  brought  on, 
he  declared,  by  the  rivalry  between  the  capital- 


160  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

ists  of  Germany  and  England  to  control  the 
finances  and  industry  of  the  world.  It  had 
brought  the  impoverishment  of  entire  nations 
and  led  to  the  destruction  of  twenty  million 
lives. 

"We,  the  Communists  of  the  world,**  he 
said,  "will  make  it  certain  that  there  will  be 
no  more  wars  of  that  kind."  He  went  on  for 
about  twenty  minutes  to  prove  that  revolution 
and  Communism  could  alone  save  humanity. 
He  was  interpreted  in  German  by  Karl  Radek, 
Secretary  of  the  Third  International,  while 
Madame  Balabanova  addressed  us  in  French 
and  Italian. 

Zinoviev  then  introduced  Kalinin,  President 
of  the  Peasants  and  Workers  Soviets,  who 
welcomed  us  in  the  name  of  the  workmen  and 
peasants  of  Russia.  He  spoke  of  the  solidar- 
ity of  the  proletariat  of  the  country  and  of 
their  determination  to  fight  to  the  end  for 
world  Communism.  "We  who  represent  the 
masses  of  other  nations,  ought  to  unite  with 
them  and  strike  the  final  blow  against  capital- 
ism," he  declared,  "and  then  establish  a 
world-wide  Communist  government." 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  161 

After  he  finished,  Bukharin,  a  member  of 
the  National  Executive  Council,  followed  him 
and  proposed  the  names  of  members  to  pre- 
side at  the  Congress.  Comrade  Levi  of  Ger- 
many, Comrade  Eosner  of  France,  Comrade 
Serrati  of  Italy,  and  Lenin  and  Zinoviev  of 
Eussia,  were  unanimously  accepted  without 
debate,  and  it  became  apparent  from  the  first 
that  the  delegates  were  supposed  to  follow  a 
pre-arranged  program. 

Nikolai  Lenin  was  then  introduced  by  Zino- 
viev. "I  will  call  upon  the  greatest  man  of 
today,  Comrade  Lenin,"  he  announced.  Lenin 
stood  up  and  the  cheering  broke  out  again 
while  the  band  burst  into  the  familiar  "Inter- 
nationale." 

The  Dictator  of  Eussia  is  one  of  the  shrewd- 
est men  in  the  world,  and  he  is  not  above 
playing  to  the  gallery.  When  he  had  first 
entered  the  hall,  a  blind  workingman  who  had 
lost  his  eyes  in  one  of  the  electrical  plants  in 
Petrograd  was  introduced  to  him.  In  the 
sight  of  all  of  us  he  had  embraced  him  and 
kissed  him  several  times.  He  had  shown  us 
one  side  of  his  character,  his  humility  and  his 


162  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

feeling  of  brotherhood  for  men  in  humble 
positions.  But  it  was  another  Lenin  who 
spoke  to  us  from  the  platform — intelligent, 
well-read,  and  logical,  a  man  of  iron  will.  He 
spoke  without  notes  and  without  a  single  pause 
for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  principally  on 
international  affairs,  and  the  futile  efforts  of 
the  politicians  of  the  capitalist  nations  to 
bring  order  after  the  war.  He  spoke  with 
bitter  irony  of  Woodrow  ^Vilson  and  the  Four- 
teen Points,  and  of  the  proceedings  at  the  Ver- 
sailles Conference.  He  left  nothing  out.  The 
efforts  of  Lloyd  George  and  the  German  mili- 
taristic autocracy  to  stay  in  power,  the  crimes 
of  American  capitalism,  the  human  lives 
thrown  away  in  the  war  for  the  benefit  of 
bankers,  lawyers  and  politicians.  He  spoke 
also  about  the  debt  of  Russia  to  English 
capitalists. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  laughing,  "we  won't 
pay,  and  we  told  them  that  we  are  not  going 
to  pay.  The  people  did  not  receive  the  money. 
They  will  have  to  get  it  from  the  Czar  who  is 
responsible  for  it."  He  laughed  again  and 
everyone  joined  in  with  him. 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  163 

After  his  speech,  which  was,  of  course,  the 
great  feature  of  the  meeting,  a  band  played 
the  "Internationale"  again,  and  the  Congress 
was  adjourned. 

"We  were  to  hold  the  next  meeting  in  Mos- 
cow, we  were  told,  in  a  few  days,  although  the 
exact  date  was  not  mentioned. 

We  filed  out  of  the  beautiful  hall,  and  were 
met  outside  by  a  dense  crowd  of  people.  While 
we  were  trying  to  force  our  way  through,  for 
the  police  system  seemed  to  have  entirely 
broken  down,  my  wife  was  literally  torn  away 
from  me  and  it  was  impossible  to  turn  back 
to  find  her. 

An  immense  parade  was  formed  and  the 
delegates,  thousands  of  workingmen,  and 
women  and  children  marched  through  the 
streets  with  innumerable  bands  playing  a 
funeral  march,  until  we  came  to  the  square 
where  the  martyrs  of  the  second  revolution 
had  been  buried.  I  presume  that  their  graves 
were  being  decorated,  but  I  was  hemmed  in  by 
the  crowd  and  it  was  impossible  to  see  any- 
thing. Airplanes  flew  over  our  heads,  firing 
their  machine  guns  as  a  salute.  Then  the 


164  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

crowd  formed  a  line  again  and  we  marched  to 
the  great  open  space  in  front  of  the  Exchange 
Building.  On  the  immense  sweep  of  marble 
steps  a  spectacle  had  been  arranged,  in  which 
fifteen  thousand  people  took  part.  In  tho 
dazzling  light  of  countless  searchlights,  we 
saw  the  Czar  seated  on  a  throne  surrounded 
by  members  of  the  court  and  generals,  then  a 
red  star  was  raised  over  the  heads  of  the 
actors.  Thousands  of  workmen  and  common 
soldiers  hurled  themselves  at  the  steps  and 
tore  down  the  throne  and  the  imperial  deco- 
rations in  the  background.  Then  came  the 
second  revolution,  and  gradually  the  Com- 
munist state  was  evolved,  and  a  fine  pageant 
was  staged  showing  the  triumph  of  the  prole- 
tariat, and  the  prosperity  of  the  united  work- 
ers of  the  world. 

When  I  returned  to  the  train,  I  was  dis- 
turbed and  frightened  because  my  wife  had 
not  yet  come  in,  but  in  a  few  moments,  she 
appeared,  worn  out  with  her  efforts  to  fight 
her  way  through  the  crowd.  She  had  gotten 
lost  and  had  had  great  difficulty  in  finding  the 
station.  The  poor  woman  had  been  worried 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  16S 

about  me  and  cried  with  happiness  when  she 
saw  me  waiting  for  her  in  the  compartment. 
After  we  returned  to  Moscow,  there  was 
another  long  delay  before  the  second  meeting 
of  the  Congress  was  opened.  Nearly  all  of  the 
delegates  were  anxious  to  get  back  to  their 
respective  countries  as  soon  as  they  could^ 
and  although  we  discussed  the  matter  end- 
lessly and  sent  committees  to  call  upon  the 
Government,  everyone  seemed  to  be  in  com- 
plete ignorance  about  the  date  set  for  the 
opening.  There  were  rumors  flying  about  of 
revolutionary  plots  and  projects  to  dynamite 
the  assembly.  But  finally,  we  were  informed 
by  the  Commandant  that  he  was  ready  to  sup- 
ply us  with  new  passes  for  entering  the  Krem- 
lin, where  the  Congress  was  to  be  held. 
Finally,  on  the  27th  of  July,  we  were  admitted 
through  the  doors  of  the  Andrievsky  Palace 
in  the  Kremlin.  Each  of  us  had  been  previ- 
ously put  through  a  strict  cross-examination, 
and  had  been  forced  to  show  our  passes  again 
and  again.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  the  Govern- 
ment had  become  very  nervous  and  appre- 
hensive of  some  outbreak,  or  perhaps  of  an 


166  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

attempt  to  assassinate  Lenin.  In  the  palace 
itself  we  were  examined  again,  and  our  passes 
were  inspected  three  times  before  we  were 
allowed  into  the  Hall.  All  of  these  excessive 
precautions,  together  with  the  soldiers  armed 
with  rifles  and  bayonets,  whom  we  passed  at 
every  step,  alarmed  some  of  the  delegates 
greatly.  Whether  the  fears  of  the  authorities 
were  justified  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  nothing 
occurred  during  the  next  eleven  days  in  which 
the  Congress  met,  to  disturb  us. 

There  was  an  entirely  different  atmosphere 
in  the  second  session  of  the  Congress  from  the 
noisy  demonstration  in  Petrograd.  Lenin  ap- 
peared as  soon  as  we  were  seated,  followed 
by  Trotsky,  Commanding  General  of  the  Rus- 
sian Army,  and  the  meeting  was  immediately 
opened  by  Zinoviev.  There  was  no  cheering, 
and  even  the  band  had  been  suppressed;  the 
business  of  the  meeting  proceeded  in  a  quite 
determined  fashion.  There  were  no  visitors, 
only  the  delegates  and  the  officers  of  the  Gov- 
ernment who  were  guests  of  the  Third  Inter- 
national, nearly  all  of  them  members  of  the 
Central  Executive  Committee.  Committees 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  167 

were  appointed  for  ways  and  means,  propa- 
ganda, etc.  The  Congress  had  decided  the 
proceedings  should  be  conducted  in  Russian, 
German  and  French,  but  John  Reed  protested 
vigorously.  He  insisted  that  the  proceedings 
should  be  carried  on  in  English  also,  and  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  matter  had  already 
been  decided  by  vote,  the  chairman  answered 
him  in  French  and  told  him  that  he  would 
have  to  put  his  protest  in  writing,  but  Reed 
kept  on  protesting  loudly. 

"I  want  you  to  understand,"  he  cried,  "that 
there  are  twenty-nine  English-speaking  dele- 
gates present,  and  in  their  names  I  demand 
that  you  listen  to  me  in  my  own  tongue." 

Shouts  of  protest  arose  from  every  side, 
and  for  a  while  I  felt  certain  that  he  would 
be  arrested  and  thrown  out  of  the  Hall,  but 
John  Reed  had  made  himself  an  important 
and  powerful  figure  in  Russian  politics,  and 
had  made  them  believe  that  he  was  the  leader 
of  a  powerful  Communist  party  which  he  had 
founded  in  the  United  States.  Even  Lenin 
attempted  to  stop  him,  but  Reed  pounded  on 
the  table  with  his  fist  and  demanded  that  the 


168  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

vote  should  be  taken  again.  It  was  finally 
carried  by  a  small  majority  that  the  meeting 
would  be  conducted  in  four  languages,  Eus- 
sian,  French,  German  and  English. 

The  Congress  closed  on  August  7th,  and 
more  than  one  of  the  delegates  breathed  a  sigh 
of  relief,  for  it  had  grown  extremely  monoto- 
nous, principally  on  account  of  our  ignorance 
of  each  other's  language,  and  the  necessity  of 
listening  to  long  speeches  and  reports  which 
had  to  be  interpreted  over  and  over  again. 
The  individual  committees  met  apart  from  the 
general  assemblies,  and  on  each  day  a  differ- 
ent report  was  brought  up  and  discussed  and 
voted  upon.  The  most  interesting  discussion 
arose  over  the  question  of  propaganda,  for 
their  program  was  enormous  in  extent,  con- 
sisting of  an  attempt  to  spread  Communist 
doctrines  into  the  working  classes  of  every 
country  in  the  world. 

It  was  decided  to  make  a  special  effort  to 
find  converts  to  Communism  in  the  trades 
unions  of  England  and  America,  and  arrange- 
ments were  made  to  distribute  vast  quantities 
of  literature,  mostly  pamphlets,  which  were 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  169 

to  be  translated  into  every  language  and  sent 
to  the  different  countries  by  means  of  secret 
agents.  As  far  as  possible,  workmen  were 
to  be  instructed  in  actual  revolution  by  sug- 
gesting means  of  obtaining  arms,  and  were  to 
organize  themselves  after  the  model  of  the 
Red  Army  in  Eussia.  Wherever  it  was  pos- 
sible, the  Russian  army  itself  was  to  be  used 
to  aid  their  fellow  workers  in  other  countries 
after  their  revolution  had  been  started. 

After  the  meetings,  we  occasionally  took 
lunch  in  the  palace,  with  Lenin,  Radek,  Zino- 
viev  and  Trotsky  usually  present.  Only  a 
few  delegates  were  present  at  the  meetings 
in  the  evening,  which  occasionally  lasted  until 
very  late.  After  listening  all  the  morning  to 
long  debates  in  languages  we  could  not  under- 
stand, we  were  usually  too  worn  out  to  think 
of  going  through  it  again  during  the  same 
day.  Besides  the  monotony  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken,  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Congress  ruled  the  meetings  with  an  iron 
hand,  and  as  every  detail  was  thoroughly 
planned  in  advance,  there  was  no  opportunity 
for  an  individual  to  express  himself.  The 


170  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

steam  roller  which  the  Russians  knew  how  to 
apply  so  successfully  to  their  own  Soviet 
meetings  was  applied  to  us,  and  no  one  dared 
to  say  a  word  that  did  not  fit  in  with  the 
pre-conceived  scheme  of  the  Committee. 

One  day  when  I  came  back  to  the  hotel  with 
my  wife,  I  was  met  by  five  German  delegates. 
One  of  them  asked  me,  since  I  spoke  Russian 
myself,  to  tell  him  all  I  could  of  the  Russian 
Government,  and  to  give  him  some  idea  of 
my  opinion  of  the  feelings  of  the  country  as 
a  whole  concerning  the  Bolshevists.  The 
spokesman  for  the  party  told  me  that  their 
ignorance  of  Russian  had  made  them  feel 
there  was  a  great  deal  in  the  situation  they 
had  not  been  able  to  grasp.  I  answered  that 
I  had  nothing  to  tell  them,  and  that  as  there 
were  plenty  of  interpreters  who  spoke  their 
language,  it  would  be  best  for  them  to  in- 
vestigate themselves.  I  felt  that  I  could  not 
express  myself  enthusiastically  enough  to  con- 
vince them  that  I  was  in  favor  of  Commu- 
nism. Whether  they  reported  to  the  Govern- 
ment what  I  had  told  them,  I  do  not  know. 
Although  I  had  not  committed  myself  in  any 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  171 

way,  I  became   still  more  uneasy  about  my 
position. 

A  short  time  before  this,  another  incident 
had  happened  to  add  to  my  uncertainty.  While 
we  were  in  the  dining  car,  going  from  Petro- 
grad  to  Moscow,  Boris  Reinstein,  a  natural- 
ized American,  who  had  worked  for  many 
years  for  the  Socialist  Party  in  America,  and 
who  had  gone  to  Russia  on  the  outbreak  of 
Bolshevism,  asked  me  in  the  presence  of  other 
delegates,  to  tell  him  all  that  I  could  about 
the  Communist  Party  in  America.  Reinstein 
was  at  that  time  attached  to  Lenin's  office 
and  was  very  much  in  the  confidence  of  the 
members  of  the  Committee  of  the  Interna- 
tional. I  told  him,  what  I  knew  to  be  true, 
that  the  Communists  in  America  were  limited 
in  number,  and  after  John  Reed  had  left  for 
Russia  it  had  almost  completely  dissolved  as  a 
party.  I  have  already  explained  that  it  was 
partly  due  to  Reed  that  the  Socialist  Party 
of  the  United  States  was  split  at  the  conven- 
tion held  in  Chicago  in  1919,  and  that  Reed's 
power  in  Russia  was  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  represented  himself  as  the  leader  of  a 


172  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

powerful  movement  which  might  in  the  end 
succeed  in  overturning  the  Government  of  the 
United  States. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  what  I  had  said,  Rein- 
stein  hurried  into  another  car  and  brought 
John  Reed  back  with  him.  He  asked  me  point 
blank  if  it  was  true  that  I  had  said  that  there 
was  no  Communist  Party  in  America. 

"I  told  Reinstein  that  there  are  Communists 
in  America,  but  no  Communist  Party,"  I  re- 
plied, "and  you  know  that  that  is  true." 

Reed  became  extremely  angry  and  left  me 
without  another  word,  but  after  that  incident 
he  never  spoke  to  me  again,  and  I  realized 
that  I  had  unwisely  made  him  my  enemy.  His 
dislike  of  us  grew  so  pointed,  that  one  day 
when  my  wife  asked  him  to  escort  her  to  one 
of  the  meetings  of  the  labor  council,  without 
any  explanation,  he  definitely  refused  to  do  so. 
During  my  stay  in  Russia  it  was  obvious  that 
Reed  was  fanatically  and  violently  attached 
to  Communist  ideals  and  there  was  no  question 
about  the  power  that  he  exercised  over  the 
lesser  members  of  the  Communist  Party.  In 
addition  to  his  position  in  the  Bolshevist  Gov- 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  173 

eminent,  he  was  also  a  member  of  the  Ex- 
ecutive Board  of  the  International  Communist 
Party,  and  it  had  been  decided  during  one  of 
the  propaganda  meetings  of  the  Congress,  that 
John  Eeed  was  to  go  to  Canada  and  from 
there  to  the  United  States  to  conduct  a  propa- 
ganda campaign,  taking  with  him  Communist 
literature. 

Everywhere,  I  found  the  impression  had 
been  created  that  the  Communists  had  over- 
thrown the  Socialist  Party  in  America,  and 
had  become  so  great  an  influence  in  American 
politics  that  the  Government  itself  had  become 
terrified,  and  Reed  was  naturally  mentioned 
as  the  one  who  had  been  responsible  for  this 
change.  The  fact  that  the  American  Govern- 
ment was  taking  very  strict  measures  against 
the  Communists  in  the  United  States  was  used 
to  back  up  this  theory. 

Alexander  Stoslitsky,  another  American  who 
was  prominent  at  the  meetings  of  the  Con- 
gress, had  been  influential  in  creating  this 
false  opinion  of  the  strength  of  Communism 
in  America.  Since  John  Reed's  death,  he  has, 
I  believe,  taken  up  his  work  and  has  been 


174  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

lately  in  Reval,  where  lie  lias  been  conducting 
a  propaganda  campaign. 

Another  disturbing  incident  had  given  me 
warning  that  I  was  not  in  favor  with  the 
Communist  officials.  One  morning  at  one  of 
the  sessions  of  the  Congress,  Trotsky  asked 
me  when  the  "Yellows"  would  turn  Red  in 
America,  that  is  to  say,  when  would  the  So- 
cialists become  radical  enough  to  attempt  to 
overthrow  the  Government.  I  answered  him 
that  I  expected  that  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment would  be  the  last  country  in  the 
world  to  follow  Communist  principles. 

Reed,  who  had  been  listening  attentively, 
jumped  to  his  feet  immediately.  ""Why  do 
you  say  that,  Schwartz!"  he  shouted. 

"Jack,"  I  replied,  "you  know  perfectly 
well,  and  so  does  Comrade  Trotsky,  that  all 
labor  cannot  be  classed  in  the  United  States 
in  one  mass,  since  it  is  really  divided  into 
many  groups.  There  are  workmen  there  who 
earn  anywhere  from  three  to  eight  dollars  a 
day  for  eight  hours  work.  You  may  be  able 
to  persuade  the  common  laborer  earning  a 
minimum  wage  to  take  up  a  gun  and  a  red 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  175 

flag  and  start  a  revolution,  but  how  can  you 
persuade  a  man  who  is  making  eight  dollars 
a  day,  a  man  with  a  family,  with  a  home  which 
he  perhaps  owns  himself,  and  with  children 
attending  school,  to  listen  to  you  when  you 
talk  to  him  about  revolution?  What  would 
he  say  about  that? 

"Let  me  ask  you  if  you  think  that  the 
capitalist  class  is  asleep  in  America?  If  you 
do,  you  are  bitterly  mistaken.  They  are  awake 
and  they  see  every  move  that  is  going  on  here 
and  there.  Therefore,  I  repeat  that  America 
is  likely  to  be  the  last  country  that  will  be- 
come Communist."  I  saw  that  it  was  unwise 
to  continue  this  argument,  so  I  left  the  Hall 
immediately,  and  later,  after  I  had  left  Rus- 
sia, heard  that  Zinoviev  had  told  the  delegates 
when  I  was  not  present,  that  it  would  not  be 
wise  to  listen  to  me,  stating  that  mentally  I 
was  capitalistic,  and  that  I  could  not  be 
trusted. 

In  the  meantime,  I  visited  the  Office  of  For- 
eign Affairs  and  asked  for  a  passport  to  leave 
the  country  as  soon  as  the  Congress  finished, 
but  I  know  now  that  orders  had  been  given 


176  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

to  watch  me  carefully.  For  two  or  three  clays 
I  went  there  constantly,  and  always  it  was  the 
same  story:  "We  will  have  it  for  yon  when 
you  call  again. "  Finally  I  went  to  see  Tchi- 
cherin  himself,  bnt  I  could  only  see  his  secre- 
tary. I  complained  to  him  of  my  failure  to 
get  a  passport,  but  could  get  nothing  satis- 
factory out  of  him. 

That  night  we  attended  the  last  evening 
meeting  of  the  Congress,  which  was  held  in 
the  Imperial  Theatre.  Officers  were  elected 
for  the  next  meeting,  or  rather  they  were 
proposed  and  voted  on  without  comment. 
John  Reed  became  a  delegate  from  the  United 
States,  Serrati  from  Italy,  and  Sadoul  from 
France. 

We  reached  the  hotel  at  about  eleven  o'clock, 
and  after  a  late  supper  with  the  delegates  in 
the  dining  room,  my  wife  went  back  to  her 
room  to  go  to  bed.  While  I  was  talking  to 
one  of  the  English  delegates,  three  soldiers 
with  revolvers  in  their  hands  burst  into  the 
dining  room,  walked  straight  up  to  me,  and 
asked  me  if  I  was  Comrade  Schwartz.  I  ad- 
mitted it,  and  was  told  that  I  was  under  arrest. 
I  asked  them  if  this  was  a  practical  joke. 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  177 

Everyone  around  me  was  so  astonished  that 
they  could  hardly  speak. 

"What  charges  have  you  against  me?"  I 
demanded. 

"You  are  under  arrest  by  order  of  the 
Extraordinary  Commission,"  said  one  of  them. 
"You  are  to  come  with  us  quietly  to  your 
room. ' ' 

My  wife  was  so  frightened  when  we  entered 
together  that  I  tried  to  lau^h  the  matter  off. 

"Mother,  we  are  arrested,"  I  said. 

She  did  not  believe  me  and  asked  what  the 
soldiers  were  doing  in  the  room.  Finally  I 
convinced  her  that  it  was  tfue,  and  tried  to 
make  her  believe  that  it  was  only  a  formality 
and  was  nothing  to  worry  about. 

They  began  to  cross-examine  me.  Two  sol- 
diers were  stationed  out  in  the  hall  to  keep 
everyone  out  of  the  room,  and  the  officer  who 
questioned  me  sat  at  the  table  with  a  note- 
book in  which  he  took  down  all  of  my  replies. 

My  valise  was  opened,  my  clothes  were 
searched,  and  they  also  took  out  my  pocket- 
book  and  searched  me  for  letters.  One  of  the 
soldiers  who  seemed  to  know  his  business  well, 
cut  the  lining  of  my  coat;  they  even  looked 


178  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

under  the  beds,  in  fact  they  neglected  nothing, 
even  cntting  open  the  mattresses  and  the  up- 
holstery on  the  chairs,  and  taking  the  lining 
out  of  my  hat  to  see  if  there  were  any  papers 
hidden  inside.  All  my  money  was  taken  from 
me,  including  over  a  thousand  dollars  in  Am- 
erican gold.  I  was  asked  how  long  I  had  been 
in  Moscow,  to  what  party  I  belonged,  where 
I  got  my  money,  if  I  had  met  any  European 
officers  or  had  spoken  with  Polish  officers  on 
the  border,  and  whether  I  had  had  any  com- 
munication with  the  United  States  while  I  had 
been  in  Russia. 

This  fruitless  searching  and  questioning  took 
them  until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  my 
wife  became  so  exhausted  before  the  end  of 
it,  that  she  asked  to  be  allowed  to  sleep.  We 
were  both  under  a  terrific  strain. 

The  authorities  who  had  been  responsible 
for  my  arrest  knew  that  I  was  not  a  spy  and 
that  I  was  exactly  what  I  reported  myself  to 
be.  They  knew  that  I  was  guiltless  of  any 
action  against  the  Bolshevist  Government  in 
Russia,  but  they  were  aware  that  my  attitude 
toward  their  government  had  been  unsympa- 


WE    ARE    ARRESTED  179 

thetic,  and  that  in  itself  constituted  a  crime. 
They  knew  that  I  had  investigated  conditions 
in  Russia  on  my  own  account,  while  I  should 
have  accepted  the  word  of  their  paid  inter- 
preters and  spies.  And  for  this,  my  wife  and 
I  were  put  in  prison  for  four  long  months. 

My  wife's  reputation  as  a  Socialist  worker 
in  the  United  States  was  also  known  to  them, 
and  that  she  had  given  eighteen  years  of  her 
life  to  that  cause.  "Whatever  their  reason  was 
for  punishing  me,  it  was  certainly  needless 
and  brutal  cruelty  to  treat  her  in  the  same 
way.  To  imprison  a  woman  of  fifty,  a  stranger 
to  their  country,  who  could  not  speak  their 
language,  in  their  foul  jails,  without  trial,  was 
almost  a  death  sentence.  They  knew  that  and 
they  did  not  care.  The  life  of  Jessie  Schwartz 
was  sacrificed  for  no  reason  whatever.  If  I 
had  been  guilty  of  the  worst  treason,  she 
would  have  still  been  the  innocent  victim  of 
one  of  the  most  despotic  and  cruel  govern- 
ments that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  "Dic- 
tatorship of  the  Proletariat." 


CHAPTER   X 

PRISON   LIFE 

T  1  7E  were  taken  in  a  motor  car  with  the 
*  »     same  guard  who  had  arrested  us,  to  the 
prison  of  the  Extraordinary  Commission   on 
Lnbenka  Street. 

Lnbenka  No.  2,  as  it  is  known  in  Moscow, 
was  formerly  a  hotel,  and  is  built  around  a 
great  square  courtyard.  All  the  rooms  facing 
this  courtyard  are  nsed  as  prison  cells,  while 
the  rooms  facing  the  streets  have  been  con- 
verted into  officers'  barracks.  During  the 
weeks  which  I  spent  there,  I  satisfied  myself 
that  it  was  utterly  impossible  to  escape.  Sol- 
diers were  stationed  at  the  doors  and  paced 
up  and  down  corridors  with  rifles  and  bay- 
onets. The  sentries  were  constantly  making 
the  circuit  of  the  square  under  our  windows, 
which  were  all  above  the  ground  floor.  In 
addition,  officers  were  stationed  in  the  court- 


PRISON    LIFE  181 

yard  to  prevent  the  guards  from  communicat- 
ing with  the  prisoners. 

We  reached  the  prison  a  little  after  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  there  the  tire- 
some examination  was  continued  by  the  com- 
mandant in  charge.  We  were  searched  again 
for  concealed  papers  or  money,  and  I  was 
ordered  to  give  him  a  ring  that  I  wore,  which 
was  too  tight  for  me.  One  of  the  soldiers 
nearly  broke  my  finger  in  his  efforts  to  wrench 
it  off. 

The  only  thing  that  my  wife  still  possessed 
of  any  value,  was  a  small  pin  which  her 
mother  had  given  her  when  she  died  and 
which  she  had  worn  for  thirty  years.  The 
soldiers  wanted  to  take  it  from  her,  but  she 
refused  to  give  it  up  and  began  to  cry.  I 
tried  to  tell  the  soldiers  what  it  meant  to  her, 
but  they  insisted  they  must  have  it. 

"I  am  not  going  to  give  it  up,  Mitri,"  she 
said.  "I  have  kept  it  for  thirty  years  and 
they  will  have  to  kill  me  if  they  want  it." 

I  tried  to  calm  her.  "There  is  no  use  in 
making  them  angry,  Mother.  If  you  take 
things  easily  we  may  be  here  only  for  a  few 


182  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

hours,  and  I  will  get  it  back  for  yon  when  we 
are  free."  But  she  wouldn't  listen  to  me  and 
pressed  it  with  both  hands  tight  against  her 
breast.  The  soldier  was  holding  his  revolver 
in  his  right  hand,  and  with  his  left  tried  to 
force  her  hands  down.  She  cried  out  with 
pain,  and  suddenly  turned  on  him,  outraged 
at  this  indignity  to  a  woman  old  enough  to  be 
his  mother,  tore  one  of  her  hands  free  and 
slapped  his  face.  In  an  instant  the  man 
dropped  his  revolver  and  struck  her  on  the 
mouth  with  his  fist. 

"Mitri!"  she  cried,  and  turned  to  show  me 
the  blood  running  from  her  lips. 

For  a  moment  I  saw  red,  and  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  another  soldier  to  prevent  me,  threw 
myself  in  front  of  her. 

I  can  remember  shouting,  "Let  her  alone, 
you  dog!  What  do  you  mean  by  striking  a 
woman!  You  ought  to  be  shot  for  this!" 

The  Commissar  had  gone  into  another  room, 
but  rushed  back  when  he  heard  my  shouts. 
I  begged  him  not  to  let  the  men  hurt  her,  for 
Jessie,  her  eyes  bright  with  anger,  was  still 
clasping  the  pin  to  her  breast.  I  told  him 


PRISON    LIFE  183 

that  she  was  an  American  and  didn't  under- 
stand why  the  soldier  was  so  brutal.  "We  are 
delegates  to  the  convention, "  I  said,  "not 
thieves  or  spies  or  counter-revolutionists.  We 
have  done  nothing  and  we  may  be  released  in 
a  few  hours.  Tell  your  men  to  leave  her 
alone." 

He  motioned  to  the  soldier,  who  stood  back 
sullenly.  "She  can  keep  it,  it  isn't  worth 
anything,  anyhow."  He  gave  another  order, 
and  a  guard  seized  my  wife 's  arm. 

"You  are  not  going  to  take  her  away  from 
me!"  I  cried.  "For  God's  sake  let  us  go 
together.  She  doesn't  understand,  she  will 
be  lost  here."  Just  as  she  reached  the  door, 
Jessie  pulled  back  for  a  moment  and  smiled 
at  me.  She  had  stopped  crying  and  her  old 
courage  had  come  back  to  her. 

"Good-bye,  Mitri,"  she  said  quietly.  "Per- 
haps it  won't  be  for  long."  She  gave  me 
a  final  smile  and  disappeared  through  the 
door 

I  was  so  torn  with  grief  and  anger  at  that 
last  sight  of  her  that  I  hardly  knew  what  they 
were  doing  to  me  or  where  they  were  taking 


184  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

me.  Finally  I  was  pushed  into  a  room,  the 
door  was  slammed  and  bolted  behind  me.  It 
was  a  small  room  of  about  fifteen  feet  by 
twenty,  with  one  window,  and  in  it  were  three 
men  who  looked  at  me  curiously,  and  began 
immediately  to  ask  me  who  I  was  and  why  I 
had  been  arrested.  I  answered  them  briefly 
and  looked  about  me.  There  were  four  wooden 
benches,  each  with  a  dirty,  straw  mattress. 
There  was  no  other  furniture,  and  no  blankets 
or  pillows,  towels  or  soap — not  a  book,  not  a 
paper.  My  companions  were  pale  and  dirty. 
One  of  them  was  sick.  The  youngest  of  them 
said  he  had  been  there  four  months.  I  told 
them  that  I  was  sure  that  they  would  only 
hold  me  for  a  few  days,  but  the  sick  man,  who 
coughed  constantly,  laughed  bitterly. 

"God  knows  I  don't  wish  you  any  hard 
luck,"  he  said,  "but  it  is  not  as  easy  to  get 
out  of  here  as  you  think.  I  have  been  here 
ten  months,  and  I  am  beginning  to  think  that 
I  will  never  leave  here  alive." 

I  felt  a  cold  chill  go  through  me.  In  ten 
months  what  would  become  of  my  wife?  I 
fell  into  a  moody  silence  that  must  have  lasted 


PRISON    LIFE  185 

for  hours,  and  the  next  thing  I  was  conscious 
of  was  being  given  a  miserable  plate  of  thick 
cabbage  soup  and  a  small  piece  of  fish.  The 
smell  of  this  fish  was  so  vile  that  I  could  not 
believe  that  a  human  being  could  stomach  it, 
but  my  fellow  prisoners  devoured  my  share 
as  well  as  their  own  eagerly.  A  lump  of  wet, 
sour  black  bread  completed  the  meal  and  al- 
most nauseated  me  when  I  tried  to  eat  it. 

"You  will  get  over  it,"  I  wras  told.  "It 
takes  a  little  time,  but  after  a  few  days  you 
will  feel  that  you  could  eat  a  piece  of  shoe 
leather." 

Supper  consisted  simply  of  a  plate  of  soup, 
which  I  failed  to  eat  for  the  same  reason,  and 
which  was  carefully  divided  by  my  three  com- 
panions. Night  came  on,  but  I  could  not  sleep. 
All  day  I  had  been  expecting  that  I  would  be 
taken  out  for  some  kind  of  a  hearing,  and  I 
was  -terribly  worried  about  my  wife,  for  I  did 
not  see  how  she  could  go  through  with  it  for 
long.  She  had  not  been  well  for  some  time, 
and  I  thought  that  the  dreadful  food  and 
above  all,  her  desperate  loneliness  in  this 
strange  place  where  she  would  be  unable  to 


186  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

understand  anything  that  was  said,  would 
drive  her  frantic. 

On  the  next  morning  an  officer  came  in  and 
asked  if  anyone  had  any  complaint  to  make. 
I  told  him  that  I  had  only  one — that  I  wanted 
to  see  my  wife  for  a  moment.  He  refused, 
and  one  of  the  prisoners  jeered  at  me. 

"You  must  think  that  you  are  in  America," 
lie  laughed.  "If  you  think  that  you  are  going 
to  get  out  of  here  today  or  tomorrow,  you  are 
mistaken,  and  you  had  better  make  up  your 
mind  to  it  now."  So  I  waited. 

The  third  day  I  was  so  hungry  that  I  tried 
to  swallow  the  horrible  soup  which  was  brought 
into  me  at  noon,  and  managed  to  get  it  down 
with  some  of  the  sour  bread.  It  served  the 
purpose  at  least  of  keeping  me  alive.  On  the 
next  morning,  since  there  was  still  no  sign 
that  any  one  in  the  world  outside  remembered 
my  existence,  I  wrote  to  Tchicherin,  the  Com- 
missar of  Foreign  Affairs,,  and  to  Lenin.  A 
week  passed  arid  there  was  no  answer.  I 
seemed  to  have  dropped  out  of  sight  and  out 
of  the  world  as  if  I  had  never  existed.  The 
guards  did  not  speak  to  us  when  they  brought 


PRISON    LIFE  187 

us  our  food,  and  we  four  men  were  silent  hours 
at  a  time,  sitting  on  our  benches,  staring  ab- 
jectly at  the  walls,  or  pacing  up  and  down  the 
room  as  if  we  were  animals  in  a  cage.  The 
monotony  was  almost  unbearable.  There  was 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  but  go  over  and  over 
again  in  our  minds  our  unhappy  memories. 
We  were  not  even  allowed  to  look  out  of  the 
window,  where  at  least  there  was  the  sight 
of  blue  sky  and  sunshine.  After  two  weeks 
I  became  so  ill  that  I  begged  the  guard  to 
take  me  to  the  hospital,  but  I  was  told  gruffly 
that  there  was  no  hospital  and  that  I  would 
have  to  stay  there.  The  conditions  were  ter- 
rible. The  window  was  shut  tight,  so  that  the 
atmosphere  was  stifling.  Finally,  a  fifth  man 
was  crowded  into  the  room,  and  that  night 
the  young  man  who  had  been  there  for  four 
months  was  taken  out.  After  this  the  changes 
were  frequent,  except  for  the  sick  man,  whose 
condition  had  become  alarming.  Usually,  the 
guard  would  come  for  them  after  midnight, 
and  now  and  then,  if  we  listened  attentively, 
their  visit  would  be  followed  by  a  shot.  Some- 
times we  heard  as  many  as  a  dozen  muffled 


188  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

reports.  The  death  squad  was  at  work,  exe- 
cuting those  who  had  been  convicted  by  the 
Extraordinary  Commission. 

Sometimes  one  of  the  prisoners  would  break 
into  a  long,  feverish  recital  of  his  grievances 
against  the  Government,  telling  us  the  most 
intimate  details  of  his  life,  as  if  he  was  un- 
able any  longer  to  keep  his  thoughts  to  him- 
self. Then  suddenly  he  would  stop  and  begin 
his  monotonous  pace  around  the  room.  Four 
steps  and  then  a  turn,  backward  and  forward, 
hour  after  hour. 

About  once  a  month  the  prisoners  were 
taken  to  a  bath-house  several  miles  from  the 
prison,  marching  to  it  in  a  line,  heavily 
guarded.  Each  of  us  was  given  not  more 
than  thirty  minutes  to  bathe  and  try  to  wash 
our  linen  before  we  were  pushed  out  into  the 
street  through  another  exit  and  marched  back 
to  the  prison.  For  a  sick  man  it  was  a  terrible 
ordeal,  and  I  was  told  that  in  winter  many  of 
the  prisoners  caught  consumption  on  going 
out  into  the  bitter  cold,  insufficiently  clothed, 
after  the  moist  heat  and  steam  of  the  bath. 

The  sick  man  told  us  that  he  had  been  ar- 


PRISON    LIFE  189 

rested  for  being  involved  in  a  counter-revolu- 
tionary movement,  as  the  secretary  of  a  secret 
organization.  This  organization  had  decided 
to  assassinate  Trotsky;  two  men  had  been 
selected  and  had  attended  a  meeting  at  which 
Trotsky  was  present,  where  they  threw  a 
bomb  into  the  crowd.  Eight  were  killed  and 
a  number  wounded. 

But  Trotsky  was  uninjured,  and  as  he  came 
out  from  the  building,  he  said  that  for  each 
life  that  had  been  taken  a  hundred  men  would 
be  killed.  During  thirty  days  time,  eight  hun- 
dred had  been  executed  by  the  Extraordinary 
Commission.  The  secretary  of  the  organiza- 
tion had  been  arrested  and  expected  as  a 
matter  of  course  to  be  shot,  but  they  had  kept 
him  alive  in  the  hope  of  a  confession,  and 
now  they  seemed  to  have  forgotten  his  ex- 
istence. 

At  first  he  had  been  put  into  a  black  cell  in 
the  basement,  where  he  had  to  lie  down  on  the 
cement  floor  which  was  covered  with  an  inch 
of  filthy  water.  The  air  in  this  place,  he  said, 
was  so  damp  and  foul  from  the  sewer  pipes 
that  it  was  impossible  to  breathe  it  without 


190  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

choking.  After  three  days  they  took  him  out 
in  a  fainting  condition  and  placed  him  in  the 
room  where  I  met  him.  This  man  was  about 
thirty  years  old,  but  his  hair  was  gray,  and  he 
had  become  so  weak  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  walk  across  the  room  without  falling.  We 
were  all  sorry  for  him,  for  he  was  an  intelli- 
gent and  courageous  man,  a  graduate  of  the 
University  of  Moscow. 

Later  they  had  tried  to  force  him  to  confess 
the  names  of  all  the  men  associated  with  him 
in  the  secret  society.  He  had  been  taken  down 
•to  the  basement;  his  clothes  were  stripped 
from  him,  and  he  was  faced  with  a  firing  squad 
of  revolvers.  "This  is  your  last  chance,"  the 
officer  said.  Then  he  slowly  counted  three 
times  before  he  gave  the  command  of  fire. 

The  men  fired,  but  they  shot  over  his  head, 
and  the  poor  wretch  fell  to  the  floor  uncon- 
scious. Several  times  this  happened  to  him, 
and  finally  his  nerves  were  so  shattered  that 
he  could  not  endure  it  any  longer,  and  when 
once  more  after  many  months  of  this  mental 
agony,  he  was  taken  out  again  to  be  shot,  he 
suddenly  broke  down  and  confessed  the  names 


PRISON    LIFE  191 

of  everyone  who  had  been  involved  with  him. 

Later  on  they  had  come  to  him  with  an  offer 
to  release  him  if  he  would  be  willing  to  serve 
as  a  spy  for  the  Extraordinary  Commission. 

"No,"  he  told  them.  "I  have  betrayed  my 
comrades,  but  I  will  not  betray  my  country. 
I  would  rather  die  where  I  am  than  serve 
you." 

One  morning  the  door  opened,  and  a  man 
about  thirty  years  of  age  came  in  and  said 
that  he  had  been  arrested  in  Petrograd,  and 
that  the  charge  against  him  was  treason.  He 
told  us  that  he  expected  to  be  shot  within  a 
few  days,  and  he  was  so  nervous  that  he  could 
neither  sleep  nor  eat.  This  was  his  story: 

"I  was  the  station  master  of  a  small  town 
near  the  border  of  Finland.  My  wife  and  I 
were  allowing  men  whom  we  knew  to  be 
counter-revolutionists  and  spies  across  the 
border.  At  last  it  was  discovered  and  a  trap 
was  laid  for  us.  A  detective  of  the  Extraor- 
dinary Commission  came  to  see  me,  and  said 
that  he  had  escaped  from  prison  and  must 
cross  into  Finland.  The  man  had  letters  of 
introduction  from  others  whom  I  had  recently 


192  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

passed  over  the  border,  so  I  let  him  go.  On 
the  next  day  he  returned  with  soldiers,  ar- 
rested both  of  us,  and  brought  us  to  Moscow." 
Since  there  was  no  question  of  our  new 
companion's  guilt,  we  felt  certain  that  there 
was  no  hope  for  him.  It  was  pitiful  to  watch 
him;  every  time  the  door  opened,  the  poor  fel- 
low would  turn  as  pale  as  a  ghost;  at  night 
he  couldn't  sleep,  and  at  the  slightest  noise 
would  scream  with  fright.  Although  his  case 
was  more  perilous  than  that  of  the  rest  of  us, 
we  were  all  of  us  in  constant  terror  of  the 
sudden  midnight  visits  of  the  guards.  The 
suspense  was  enough  to  shatter  the  strongest 
nerves.  Fortunately,  his  wife's  brother  hap- 
pened to  be  in  a  position  of  some  importance 
with  the  Government,  Head  Commissar  of  Fuel. 
In  a  few  days  a  package  of  food  and  clothing 
was  brought  in  to  him,  with  a  letter  from  his 
brother-in-law,  and  two  days  later  he  was 
released.  It  was  a  fair  example  of  Communist 
justice.  My  wife  and  I,  who  had  done  nothing, 
were  left  in  prison  without  trial,  while  this 
man,  who  was  actually  guilty  of  plotting  the 
Government's  overthrow,  was  released  because 


PRISON    LIFE  193 

his  wife's  brother  was  a  minor  Government 
official. 

On  another  occasion,  a  Pole,  and  a  young 
Austrian  of  nineteen,  who  had  been  taken 
prisoner  six  years  before,  became  our  com- 
panions in  misery  for  a  time.  The  poor  Aus- 
trian boy  had  never  learned  to  speak  Russian, 
though  he  had  been  arrested  in  1914  for  carry- 
ing provisions  across  the  Russian  front  and 
had  been  sent  to  Siberia,  where  he  was  held 
in  a  miserable  prison  camp  until  1918.  When 
the  camp  was  broken  up  he  tried  to  reach 
home,  and  with  incredible  hardship  had  worked 
his  way  westward  from  town  to  town,  until 
his  clothes  were  in  tatters.  On  the  outskirts 
of  Moscow  he  had  been  picked  up  by  a  detach- 
ment of  Red  Guards.  He  was  accused  of  being 
a  spy  and  was  sent  to  our  jail  without  any 
investigation. 

The  Pole  had  been  a  representative  of  his 
government  at  Baku.  He  had  been  in  the  city 
when  it  was  captured,  and  said  that  without 
any  provocation,  hundreds  of  unarmed  people 
had  been  massacred  in  the  streets  by  the  Red 
troops.  Instead  of  being  killed,  as  he  had 


194  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

expected,  he  was  imprisoned  in  a  small  cell 
in  a  Baku  jail  with  fifteen  other  men,  where 
the  rations  consisted  of  one  bowl  of  soup  and 
half  a  pound  of  bread  a  day.  He  contracted 
consumption  from  one  of  his  companions  and 
was  coughing  blood  when  he  was  with  us  in 
Moscow.  I  tried  to  get  him  released,  and  sent 
word  to  the  Commissar  that  he  was  too  ill  to 
stay  with  us.  On  the  next  day  he  was  exam- 
ined by  a  doctor  in  the  office  and  sent  back  to 
us  again  with  the  report  that  there  was  noth- 
ing much  the  matter  with  him.  He  stayed 
with  us  for  a  month,  getting  constantly 
weaker,  when  he  was  suddenly  taken  away. 
What  his  fate  was  I  never  learned. 

And  so  the  days  passed  in  the  same  deadly 
monoton3r.  I  wrote  many  letters  to  members 
of  the  Government,  and  finally,  when  there 
was  no  response,  I  gave  up  hope,  expecting 
every  day  to  be  taken  out  and  shot.  I  began 
to  lose  weight  terribly,  and  realized  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  me  to  live  through 
many  more  months  of  this  existence.  My  only 
desire  was  that  my  wife  should  be  released 


PRISON    LIFE  195 

to  go  home  to  our  children  again.  At  least 
they  would  then  know  what  my  fate  had  been. 

One  night  shortly  after  midnight,  the  door 
was  flung  open  and  my  name  was  called.  An 
officer  with  a  revolver  entered,  followed  by  two 
soldiers  carrying  rifles.  My  companions  were 
panic-stricken  until  they  realized  that  it  was 
Schwartz  who  was  wanted.  I  could  hardly 
move  from  fright,  but  at  last  I  got  control  of 
myself.  I  can  remember  stammering  out, 
' 'Good-bye.  This  is  my  last  journey.  .  I  am 
going  to  be  killed." 

I  shuffled  out  into  the  corridor  with  them, 
and  as  we  came  to  the  stairway  the  suspense 
became  terrible;  for  I  knew  that  if  we  went 
down  it  would  be  to  the  cellars,  where  the 
executions  were  held.  The  officer  reached  the 
head  of  the  stairs  and  I  clutched  the  guard's 
arm  to  steady  myself.  But  the  officer  turned 
around  to  grin  at  me,  and  walked  straight 
ahead.  He  knew  well  enough  what  I  was  feel- 
ing. My  strength  came  back  to  me  miracu- 
lously and  I  walked  ahead  in  a  daze,  and 
suddenly  I  found  myself  confronting  a  tall 
man  in  uniform. 

"What  is  your  name!"  he  asked. 


196  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

"Dmitri  Alexander  Schwartz,"  I  answered 
•weakly. 

"Sit  down,  comrade,"  he  said  in  a  friendly 
voice. 

I  took  a  seat  near  him,  and  suddenly  was 
aware  that  I  was  shaking  violently  as  if  I 
had  taken  a  chill. 

"Yonr  case  has  been  brought  up  for  exami- 
nation," he  said,  "and  we  have  found  that  we 
have  made  a  serious  mistake.  It  was  sus- 
pected that  you  were  a  spy  and  counter-revo- 
lutionist, but  now  you  are  to  be  liberated  and 
you  can  return  to  the  United  States  when  you 
want." 

"That  is  good.  I  am  glad,"  I  answered. 
"Where  is  my  wife?  I  haven't  seen  her  for 
over  two  months." 

"She  is  alive  and  will  be  here  in  a  moment," 
he  replied. 

At  last  the  door  opened,  and  Jessie  came 
in.  The  shock  I  received  at  seeing  her  was 
almost  greater  than  my  joy.  She  looked  old 
and  worn,  years  older  than  when  I  had  seen 
her  last,  and  her  hair  had  turned  very  gray. 
For  a  moment  she  did  not  seem  to  recognize 


PRISON    LIFE  197 

me,  for  I  had  grown  a  beard,  and  was  also 
emaciated  from  sickness  and  insufficient  food. 
The  poor  woman  sat  down  beside  me  without 
saying  a  word  and  took  my  hand  as  if  she 
would  never  let  it  go  again.  I  could  think 
of  nothing  to  say  to  her  except  "Don't  cry, 
Mother, "  which  I  repeated  over  and  over 
again. 

"I  haven't  any  tears  left,  Mitri,"  she  said. 
"I  have  cried  them  all  out  in  that  horrible 
room  back  there.  I  thought  you  had  been 
killed.  Why  have  they  kept  us  away  from 
each  other  so  long?" 

"It  is  all  right  now,"  I  told  her.  "We  are 
free  and  can  go  home  together." 

"Thank  God!"  she  cried,  and  put  her  arms 
around  me  and  kissed  me. 

The  officer  who  had  been  watching  us  care- 
fully without  interrupting  us,  now  called  the 
guard,  and  suddenly  we  were  torn  away  from 
each  other  again. 

"I  can't  go  back  to  that  place  again," 
Jessie  said.  "I  thought  we  were  free." 

I  tried  to  calm  her.  "Just  another  day, 
only  until  we  get  our  passports.  Go  back 


198  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

quietly  and  don't  worry.  It  is  going  to  come 
out  all  right." 

They  dragged  her  off,  protesting  bitterly. 
and  in  a  moment  I  was  back  again  with  im- 
prison companions,  who  were  all  glad  to  see 
me,  for  they  had  been  certain  that  my  last 
hour  had  come.  Two  days  later  I  was  called 
out  again.  I  said  a  final  good-bye,  and  we 
embraced  each  other  as  if  we  had  been  broth- 
ers. Indeed,  our  common  misery  had  linked 
us  together  until,  in  spite  of  my  joy  at  the 
thought  of  freedom,  it  hurt  me  to  leave  them. 

But  in  the  corridor,  instead  of  meeting  my 
wife  as  I  had  hoped,  I  was  put  at  the  end  of 
a  line  of  prisoners  under  guard,  and  we  were 
all  marched  to  the  office.  To  my  amazement 
I  recognized  two  of  them,  Pat  Quinlin,  an 
American  I.  "W.  "W.,  and  Xathan  Schabro  of 
New  York.  Quinlin  said  that  he  had  written 
a  letter  to  Ireland,  in  which  he  had  said  in 
Gaelic,  "To  hell  with  the  Bolshevists,"  and 
that  he  supposed  this  was  the  cause  of  his 
sudden  arrest.  He  could  think  of  nothing 
else.  Schabro  seemed  to  think  he  was  there 
because  his  brother  was  in  the  Police  Depart- 


PRISON    LIFE  199 

ment  in  New  York.  It  was  strange  to  find 
three  American  delegates  to  the  International 
in  the  same  prison,  for  we  had  gone  to  Russia 
almost  in  the  position  of  diplomatic  envoys. 

Suddenly  I  saw  that  my  wife  had  been 
brought  in,  but  when  I  tried  to  speak  to  her, 
a  guard  stopped  me  and  shook  his  revolver 
at  me.  A  numb  of  fear  began  to  steal  over 
me.  Perhaps  we  were  not  free  after  all.  This 
might  be  the  beginning  of  new  miseries. 

The  prisoners,  about  twenty  of  us,  were 
marched  into  the  courtyard,  and  I  heard  that 
we  were  to  be  taken  to  the  railroad  station. 

"But  where  is  our  money  and  our  pass- 
ports f"  my  wife  asked.  "We  can't  leave 
without  them." 

I  protested  to  the  officer,  who  said  that  we 
would  receive  them  at  the  station.  But  my 
wife  refused  to  go  without  them.  We  were 
ordered  to  march,  but  still  she  would  not 
move.  Finally,  two  soldiers  seized  her  by  the 
arms  and  began  to  drag  her  along  between 
them.  I  shouted  at  the  officers  to  stop  them. 
The  man  grew  angry. 

"Bring  her  along,"  he  called  to  the   sol- 


200  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

diers.  Then  to  me,  "Yon  are  not  going  to 
the  station.  You  are  going  to  another  jail, 
and  after  that  we  will  bring  yon  back  here 
and  give  you  everything  that  belongs  to  you." 

I  told  my  wife  what  he  had  said,  and  she 
began  to  scream  at  the  officer,  until  I  was 
frightened  for  fear  that  she  had  lost  her  mind. 

But  there  was  no  help.  The  gates  were 
thrown  open  and  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
street.  It  was  snowing  outside,  and  it  was 
bitterly  cold.  Many  of  us  were  half  sick  from 
hunger,  yet  we  had  to  walk  more  than  five 
miles  through  the  night  air  to  another  prison 
at  the  other  end  of  Moscow.  After  we  had 
gone  about  two  miles,  my  wife  said  that  she 
was  too  tired  to  take  another  step,  and  that 
they  could  kill  her  right  there  if  they  wanted 
to. 

I  begged  the  officer  to  let  her  have  a  drosh- 
ky,  and  all  of  us  waited  until  one  passed  by. 
The  officer  requisitioned  it  and  commanded 
the  driver  to  take  her  to  the  prison.  Evi- 
dently she  had  been  hoping  that  the  office^ 
would  let  both  of  us  ride  together,  and  that 
perhaps  we  might  find  some  way  of  escape, 


PRISON    LIFE  201 

for  when  she  saw  that  one  of  the  soldiers  got 
in  beside  her  instead  of  me,  she  suddenly 
began  to  struggle  with  him  and  succeeded  in 
knocking  his  rifle  out  of  his  hands.  The  sol- 
dier cursed  her  violently  and  I  was  certain 
that  he  was  going  to  shoot,  so  I  shouted  to 
the  officer  that  she  was  not  responsible  for 
what  she  was  doing.  He  told  the  soldier  to 
stop,  but  after  that  my  wife  refused  to  ride 
and  in  spite  of  her  fatigue  managed  to  walk 
all  the  way  to  the  prison. 


CHAPTER  XI 

FREEDOM — THE    FINAL    SACRIFICE 

second  prison  had  been  a  monastery 
before  the  revolution.  Around  it  was  a 
high  stone  wall,  four  or  five  blocks  square, 
with  a  chapel,  a  cemetery,  and  the  monastery 
itself  inside.  Now  it  held  five  hundred  pris- 
oners, both  men  and  women.  Life  was  far 
more  possible  there  than  it  had  been  in  the 
prison  on  Lubenka  Street,  for  we  were  allowed 
to  walk  around  the  yard  during  the  day 
and  even  had  newspapers  and  books  to  read. 
There  were  English,  French,  Germans,  Jews, 
and  Italians,  besides  Russians  there,  and  as 
my  wife  was  able  to  speak  again  in  her  own 
tongue  and  to  see  me  once  a  day,  she  did  not 
mind  very  much  at  first. 

At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  the  prison- 
ers were  aroused  and  given  a  cup  of  hot  water 
for  breakfast.  At  eight  o'clock  we  were  sent 

202 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     203 

ont  to  work  at  such  tasks  as  sweeping  the 
yard,  chopping  and  sawing  wood,  repairing 
the  buildings  and  many  other  things.  At 
twelve  o'clock,  when  we  had  become  so  faint 
from  hunger  that  we  could  hardly  stand,  a 
plate  of  soup  and  half  a  pound  of  the  usual 
sour  bread  was  given  to  us.  At  two  o'clock 
we  went  back  to  work  again  until  five.  It  was 
fatiguing  and  we  were  all  in  a  desperate  con- 
dition from  hunger,  but  there  was  relief  at 
least  from  the  dreadful  monotony  of  our  pre- 
vious life.  Many  of  the  prisoners  had  curious 
tales  to  tell. 

I  met,  for  example,  the  ruler  of  a  little 
mountain  state  near  Georgia,  who  had  been 
sent  here  with  his  officials  after  his  land  had 
been  invaded  by  the  Red  Army.  There  were 
twenty  of  them  altogether;  the  ruler,  his 
brother,  his  son,  a  priest,  and  a  number  of 
generals.  Not  one  of  them  had  ever  done  a 
day's  work  before  in  his  life,  and  it  was  amus- 
ing to  see  their  scorn  of  their  menial  tasks. 
The  ruler,  his  brother  and  his  son,  were  kept 
busy  sweeping  the  yard,  cleaning  away  the 
snow.  As  soon  as  one  of  the  soldiers  who 


204  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

were  watching  turned  his  back,  one  of  them 
would  usually  drop  his  broom  and  then  pick 
it  up  again  when  the  man  had  turned  around. 
It  was  his  method  of  protesting  against  this 
indignity.  None  of  them  could  speak  a  word 
of  Russian  except  the  boy,  and  soldiers  were 
always  trying  to  convert  him  to  Communism. 
Later  he  would  tell  his  royal  father  and  uncle 
the  new  ideas  that  he  was  learning,  until  they 
were  speechless  with  anger.  This  boy  became 
the  mascot  of  the  prison.  They  dressed  bim 
in  a  uniform,  boots  and  soldier's  cap,  gave 
him  plenty  of  food,  and  allowed  him  to  go 
wherever  he  wanted. 

I  found  out  that  many  people  were  in  jail 
who  were  utterly  ignorant  of  any  reason  for 
being  there,  and  in  many  cases  I  am  sure 
that  they  had  been  entirely  forgotten  by  the 
authorities.  There  seemed  to  be  no  system 
whatever  in  keeping  track  of  the  prisoners. 
Once  we  were  all  called  out  into  the  yard  and 
an  officer  read  out  a  long  list  of  our  names. 
"When  he  came  to  a  name  to  which  no  one 
answered  he  merely  scratched  it  out  and  went 
on.  Among  them  was  a  woman  called  Zmern- 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL    SACRIFICE     205 

off,  who,  I  was  told  by  a  nurse  who  stood 
beside  me,  had  died  six  months  before. 

The  women  prisoners  were  divided  into  three 
classes — those  who  had  the  hardest  work,  such 
as  washing  and  scrubbing;  a  second  class, 
who  were  given  sewing  and  clerical  work, 
while  the  third  class  did  nothing.  This  was 
made  up  of  women  who  were  for  the  moment 
in  favor  with  the  prison  officials.  I  need  not 
say  that  the  moral  conditions  of  the  prison 
were  extremely  lax  and  that  the  soldiers  when 
they  were  off  guard  spent  most  of  their  time 
in  the  women 's  section.  But  the  common 
women,  the  old,  the  illiterate  and  the  ugly, 
were  driven  about  like  slaves,  for  even  in 
prison,  Communism  divided  mankind  into  the 
same  classes  that  exist  in  any  other  social 
system — the  favored,  the  less  favored  and 
the  proletariat. 

Although  we  were  allowed  a  certain  amount 
of  liberty  outside  of  our  cells,  the  overcrowd- 
ing in  this  prison  was  even  worse  than  in  the 
other.  There  were  forty-seven  men  in  the 
room  where  I  was  placed,  some  of  whom  were 
Asiatics  and  whose  personal  habits  were  in- 


206  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

describable.  All  of  us  slept  packed  together 
on  straw  mattresses  on  the  floor.  Our  over- 
coats served  as  our  only  covering  and  the 
temperature  was  far  below  freezing,  for  the 
heat  of  our  bodies  was  all  that  warmed  the 
air.  The  nights  were  a  perfect  bedlam  of 
noises;  coughing,  swearing,  shouting  and  sing- 
ing went  on  in  a  half-dozen  languages,  until 
the  prisoners  fell  asleep  from  exhaustion.  It 
was  like  a  madhouse. 

There  were  fourteen  Hungarian  officers  in 
that  room  who  were  being  used  by  the  Gov- 
ernment as  hostages  for  a  number  of  Com- 
munists who  had  been  sentenced  to  death  in 
Hungary.  Besides  them,  there  were  a  num- 
ber of  other  men  who  had  already  been  sen- 
tenced to  be  shot  by  the  Extraordinary  Com- 
mission, but  who,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
had  been  given  twenty  years  imprisonment 
instead,  although  it  was  obvious  that  only  the 
strongest  man  could  live  through  more  than 
two  or  three  of  such  winters  as  we  were 
having. 

The  old  chapel  of  the  monastery  outside  the 
prison  was,  of  course,  never  used,  but  every 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     207 

day  or  so  a  new  grave  was  dug  in  the  ceme- 
tery, the  bodies  being  taken  from  the  prison 
hospital,  and  laid  in  the  frozen  earth  without 
ceremony  of  any  kind. 

One  day  my  wife  told  me  she  had  made  up 
her  mind  if  we  were  not  free  in  a  week  or  so, 
she  would  try  to  kill  herself  in  some  way. 

"I  will  not  live  under  these  conditions.  If 
I  can't  be  free  I  want  to  die." 

I  told  the  Commandant  of  her  resolution, 
but  he  said  that  there  were  hundreds  dying 
throughout  Russia  every  day,  and  that  it 
would  make  very  little  difference  to  anyone 
whether  she  killed  herself  or  not. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  her  resolution 
to  go  on  a  hunger  strike  until  we  were  re- 
leased, although  I  protested  so  bitterly  against 
her  decision,  and  assured  her  that  it  would  be 
only  a  matter  of  a  short  time  before  we  were 
free,  so  she  agreed  to  wait.  Several  weeks 
passed  by  and  we  were  still  in  jail,  when  one 
day  one  of  Tchicherin's  secretaries  came  to 
tell  me  that  in  a  few  days  our  passports  would 
be  ready  for  us  so  that  we  could  return  to  the 
States.  We  heard  nothing  more  of  it,  and 


208  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

our  next  visitor  was  Madame  Balabanova,  who 
told  me  that  John  Reed  had  died  that  morn- 
ing, and  that  she  was  certain  that  we  were 
to  be  released  the  next  day. 

Another  week  passed,  and  my  wife,  who 
managed  to  secure  paper  and  ink  for  the  pur- 
pose, wrote  to  Tchicherin  at  the  Office  of  For- 
eign Affairs.  Her  letter  follows: 

"AXDROWIESKI  LAGER, 

TCHICHERIN, 

Commissar  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

Saturday,  November  13/20. 
"Fourteen  weeks  ago  today  I  was  arrested 
along  with  my  husband.  I  have  never  had  a 
hearing  of  any  kind  and  don't  know  why  I  was 
arrested,  or  why  I  am  being  held  as  a  pris- 
oner. It  was  my  plan  to  get  back  to  the 
United  States  the  first  of  September,  to  take 
part  in  the  last  campaign,  and  I  expected  to 
have  a  message  from  the  Third  International 
for  our  Comrades. 

"I  have  been  a  paying  member  of  the  So- 
cialist Party  of  the  U.  S.  A.  for  eighteen  years. 
The  greater  part  of  that  time  I  was  engaged 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     209 

in  active  work  as  lecturer  and  organizer  for 
the  party.  I  have  given  my  time,  my  money, 
and  my  life  to  the  revolutionary,  class-con- 
scious movement.  I  came  here  to  Russia  and 
brought  with  me  a  letter  of  greeting  from  the 
comrades  of  the  U.  S.  A.,  signed  by  our  Na- 
tional Secretary,  Comrade  Otto  Bronstetter, 
also  the  resolutions  passed  by  a  large  major- 
ity of  the  Socialist  Party,  endorsing  the  Third 
International  and  expressing  our  desire  to 
become  a  part  of  it. 

"The  fifth  of  August  I  was  arrested  with 
my  husband.  Everything  we  owned  was  taken 
away  from  us,  and  we  were  separated  and 
locked  up  in  prison.  For  eight  weeks  I  had 
no  communication  with  anyone.  I  tried  to  get 
information  as  to  why  I  was  arrested  and 
begged  for  a  -hearing,  but  I  could  get  no  an- 
swer of  any  kind.  At  the  end  of  eight  weeks, 
Friday,  October  1st,  I  was  aroused  about  mid- 
night and  made  to  understand  that  I  was  ex- 
pected to  dress  and  go  somewhere.  I  was 
taken  out  and  saw  my  husband  for  the  first 
time.  He  said  we  were  free. 

"Instead  of  that  we  were  taken  to  another 


210  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

prison  and  have  been  here  ever  since.  "We 
have  been  assured  by  your  secretary,  Com- 
rade Nortave,  who  visited  the  prison  Friday, 
October  15th,  that  it  would  be  only  a  few  days 
before  we  would  be  sent  home,  as  soon  as  he 
could  get  our  passports  fixed  up.  Comrade 
Balabanova  came  here  the  following  Sunday 
and  told  us  that  we  would  be  released  imme- 
diately. This  was  a  month  ago  and  we  are 
still  here. 

"As  a  Socialist  and  a  member  of  the  work- 
ing class,  representing  the  Socialist  Party  of 
the  United  States,  I  did  not  expect  this  treat- 
ment at  the  hands  of  the  Working  Class  Gov- 
ernment of  Russia.  I  can 't  stand  it  any  longer. 
It  is  killing  me ;  I  am  dying  inch  by  inch.  But 
I  have  made  up  my  mind  I  am  not  going  to 
die  in  this  way.  Ill  make  it  short.  Next 
Friday  evening,  November  19th,  I  will  eat  my 
last  meal  in  prison.  If  you  keep  me  here  and 
let  me  die,  you  will  be  guilty  of  killing  one 
of  the  well-known  revolutionary  Socialists  of 
America. 

"(Signed)  JESSIE  M.  SCHWARTZ." 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     211 

When  several  days  went  by  with  no  answer 
to  this  letter,  my  wife  began  her  hunger  strike, 
and  five  days  later  was  sent  to  the  hospital. 
But  that  evening  I  was  summoned  by  an  officer 
and  was  taken  out  to  the  courtyard  where  I 
found  my  wife,  who  was  being  carried  by  two 
soldiers.  There  was  an  automobile  waiting 
for  us,  and  with  an  officer  and  a  guard  we 
drove  through  Moscow.  But  it  was  to  still 
another  prison  we  were  taken,  not  to  the  sta- 
tion. The  officials  of  the  prison  we  had  left 
had  been  afraid  that  -there  would  be  a  sympa- 
thetic hunger  strike,  since  there  were  five  other 
Americans  there  who  said  that  they  would  not 
allow  an  American  woman  to  die  of  hunger, 
and  would  refuse  to  eat  if  she  was  not  im- 
mediately released. 

This  third  prison  was  but  a  repetition  in 
its  misery  of  the  other  two.  I  was  put  in  a 
room  not  more  than  twenty  feet  square,  where 
there  were  -a  dozen  members  of  Kolchak's 
General  Staff  who  had  been  captured  in  Si- 
beria. My  wife  went  with  me;  one  woman 
among  thirteen  men.  She  had  become  still 
weaker,  although  every  man  in  the  room  kept 


212  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

begging  her  to  eat.  I  tried  to  have  her  placed 
in  a  separate  room,  for  it  was  horrible  to  see 
these  men  who  were  covered  with  vermin  try- 
ing to  retain  their  propriety  in  the  presence 
of  a  woman,  for  in  spite  of  their  wretched- 
ness they  were  all  gentlemen.  Four  days  later 
we  were  called  into  the  office,  and  one  of  the 
guards  had  to  aid  me  to  carry  my  wife.  I 
asked  for  my  money,  and  they  refused  to  give 
it  to  me.  I  asked  for  a  passport  and  I  was 
refused  even  that.  I  told  the  Commandant 
that  I  would  not  move  without  it,  and  at  last 
after  a  great  deal  of  telephoning  and  confu- 
sion, it  was  brought  to  me.  AVe  were  taken 
out  to  a  car,  driven  to  a  freight  train  which 
stood  just  outside  the  station.  We  were  free 
at  last,  but  my  wife  was  so  ill,  and  I  myself 
was  so  desperate  with  anxiety  and  weakness, 
that  it  did  not  seem  to  matter  any  longer. 

That  journey  to  the  Russian  border  will 
always  stand  out  in  my  mind  as  one  of  the 
bitterest  experiences  of  my  life.  Packed  in 
an  ordinary  freight  car  with  forty  to  fifty 
people,  with  a  temperature  outside  below  zero, 
I  had  to  sit  upright  holding  my  wife's  head 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL    SACRIFICE     213 

on  my  shoulder,  for  there  was  no  room  to  lie 
down.  There  was  a  little  stove  in  the  middle 
of  the  car,  which  gave  out  enough  heat  to  keep 
us  alive,  but  the  atmosphere  was  so  thick  that 
it  wa;s  difficult  to  breathe. 

At  every  station  the  door  was  opened  and 
more  peasants  carrying  bundles  forced  their 
way  in,  pushed  up  by  the  soldiers  behind  them. 
After  the  train  had  been  going  for  a  few  min- 
utes, the  car  was  searched,  and  anyone  who 
was  found  with  more  than  ten  pounds  of 
bread,  or  flour  or  meat,  was  deprived  of  every- 
thing he  had.  It  was,  of  course,  mere  rob- 
bery, for  these  provisions  never  reached  the 
authorities  but  were  eaten  or  sold  by  the  sol- 
diers. Usually  they  gave  a  receipt  for  what 
they  had  taken,  but  how  worthless  it  was  was 
shown  by  an  old  peasant  who  threw  his  out 
of  the  door.  He  had  twenty-five  pounds  of 
ham  and  bacon  and  a  package  of  bread.  When 
they  began  to  search  he  tried  to  escape,  for 
the  train  was  going  slowly,  but  he  was  called 
back,  protesting  bitterly  that  his  family  was 
sick  and  that  he  was  taking  this  food  home 
to  them. 


214  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Later,  a  peasant  woman  came  in  carrying 
a  large  chicken.  One  of  the  soldiers  solemnly 
told  her  that  it  was  against  the  law  to  carry 
live-stock  among  human  beings  and  that  he 
would  have  to  take  it  away  from  her.  At  last 
the  hen  was  forced  out  of  her  arms,  squawk- 
ing, and  as  the  woman  continued  to  shout 
abuse  at  them,  she  herself  was  put  out  at  the 
next  station,  about  twenty  miles  from  where 
she  had  gotten  on.  But  in  spite  of  their 
troubles,  these  rough  peasants  were  very  kind 
to  us  as  soon  as  they  saw  that  my  wife  was 
ill.  The  poor  woman  was  deathly  pale  and 
could  hardly  speak.  They  gave  us  some  of 
the  bread  they  had  left,  and  even  wanted  to 
cover  her  with  their  overcoats,  but  I  refused 
this  because  I  knew  that  they  were  infested 
with  insects. 

At  last  we  reached  the  Esthonian  border, 
and  were  turned  over  to  an  officer  at  the 
Yomburg  station.  There  was  a  quarantine 
law  in  effect  between  Kussia  and  Esthonia,  but 
I  begged  him  not  to  apply  this  to  us,  but  to 
send  us  to  Eeval  immediately.  He  was  kind 
enough  to  telegraph  to  the  Minister  of  For- 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     215 

eign  Affairs,  who  replied  that  we  were  to  be 
sent  first  class.  I  cannot  describe  the  feeling  of 
relief  when  we  reached  the  compartment  that 
was  reserved  for  us  on  the  Eeval  train.  There 
was  no  one  else  in  it,  and  it  was  actually 
warm.  The  attendant  brought  us  tea  and  milk 
and  white  bread,  and  my  wife  managed  to  eat 
a  little,  for  the  first  time  in  eleven  days.  A 
little  color  came  back  to  her  face,  and  I  felt 
suddenly  happy  again.  Our  sufferings  were 
over,  and  my  wife  was  going  to  live,  and  we 
were  safe  and  free  at  last.  I  remembered  the 
soldier  who  had  smiled  sarcastically  at  me 
when  I  had  waved  my  red  necktie  at  him  at 
the  same  station  on  the  way  into  Russia  in 
June. 

The  rumor  spread  through  the  train  that 
there  was  a  sick  American  woman  on  board 
who  had  been  imprisoned  in  Russia,  and  sev- 
eral kind-hearted  people  came  to  see  if  they 
could  do  anything  for  us.  Crossing  the  bor- 
der was  like  going  into  another  world,  a  world 
where  there  is  humanity  and  kindness,  even 
for  a  penniless  man,  for  I  had  not  a  cent 
with  me. 


216  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

When  we  arrived  in  Eeval,  an  Esthonian 
officer  was  kind  enough,  to  give  me  money  to 
take  a  carriage.  He  helped  me  carry  my  wife 
to  it,  and  we  drove  straight  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A., 
the  manager  of  which,  Mr.  Gott,  had  helped  us 
on  our  previous  visit.  He  was  amazed  to  see 
us  so  changed  and  I  tried  to  give  him  a  brief 
account  of  our  experiences.  He  told  me  not 
to  worry  because  we  had  fallen  into  good 
hands  at  last. 

"We  will  take  care  of  you  and  see  that  you 
reach  home.  You  can  stay  here  and  rest  until 
you  are  able  to  travel,"  he  said. 

My  wife  was  put  in  charge  of  a  nurse,  and 
though  she  was  still  very  ill,  I  felt  certain 
that  she  would  improve  rapidly  with  good 
care  and  nourishing  food.  On  the  next  day 
the  Minister  of  Education  of  Esthonia  sent 
me  a  note  requesting  my  presence  at  the  De- 
partment of  Justice.  Although  I  had  not  yet 
recovered  my  strength,  I  went  to  see  him,  and 
was  asked  if  I  would  be  willing  to  deliver  a 
lecture  on  what  Bolshevism  means  to  civiliza- 
tion, but  I  refused  because  I  was  afraid  that 
it  would  involve  my  host  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL    SACRIFICE     217 

in  difficulties,  for  they  were  supposed  to  be 
in  a  strictly  neutral  position.  But  the  news- 
papers had  gotten  hold  of  my  story  and  pub- 
lished the  fact  that  I  had  escaped  with  my 
wife  from  Russia  after  great  suffering  and 
that  I  was  to  deliver  a  public  address  describ- 
ing what  I  had  seen. 

A  few  hours  after  this  account  appeared  in 
the  papers,  the  Esthonian  representative  of 
the  Bolshevist  Government  sent  a  message  for 
me  to  go  immediately  to  the  Russian  Embassy. 
I  was  taken  at  once  to  see  the  Secretary  of  the 
Commissar  of  Finance  of  Russia,  who  had 
been  sent  to  Reval  to  take  charge  of  diplomatic 
relations  with  Esthonia.  It  is  obvious,  how- 
ever, that  the  work  consists  far  more  in  an 
attempt  to  spread  Bolshevist  propaganda  into 
Europe  than  in  questions  of  mere  diplomacy. 

"I  have  been  robbed  of  all  the  money  I  had 
— over  three  thousand  dollars,"  I  told  this 
man.  "My  wife  is  sick — perhaps  she  is  dying 
— and  I  myself  am  not  well.  We  have  worked 
for  years  for  Socialism  and  were  treated  in 
Russia  in  the  most  outrageous  way." 

"I  am  not  to  blame  for  your  arrest,  and 


218  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

I  am  sorry  that  it  happened,"  he  answered. 
"I  have  sent  a  telegram  to  the  Commissar  of 
Foreign  Affairs  in  Moscow  and  asked  him  for 
money  to  get  you  home.  How  much  do  you 
want!" 

"Five  hundred  pounds,  which  is  less  than 
was  taken  from  me,  but  it  will  get  me  home." 

He  wanted  me  to  promise  that  I  would  leave 
Reval  that  night,  for  he  was  evidently  fright- 
ened of  the  effect  that  my  story  might  have 
on  the  elaborate  Communist  propaganda  that 
was  being  distributed  in  the  city,  but  I  refused 
to  give  any  promise  since  it  depended  on  how 
soon  my  wife  recovered  her  strength. 

When  I  returned  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  after 
this  brief  absence,  I  found  her  much  worse, 
and  two  days  later  she  died.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
and  the  American  Consul  helped  me  to  make 
arrangements  for  her  burial  and  were  present 
at  the  funeral.  It  was  a  melancholy  and  lonely 
ending  to  the  life  of  the  brilliant  young  woman 
who  almost  thirty  years  before  had  left  the 
University  of  Wisconsin  to  attend  her  first 
Socialist  meeting  in  Chicago. 

The  shock  was  so  great  that  I  became  sick 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL    SACRIFICE     219 

again  myself,  and  for  a  week  lay  in  bed 
hardly  caring  whether  I  lived  or  died.  Then 
a  little  courage  came  back  to  me  and  I  got 
ready  for  my  long  journey  to  the  United 
States.  I  felt  lonely  and  broken,  for  the 
ideals  for  which  I  had  labored  most  of  my 
life  seemed  suddenly  to  have  become  utterly 
useless  and  even  worse  than  useless. 

All  of  my  life,  from  the  early  days  in  Eussia 
when  I  learned  of  Nihilism  in  the  army,  I  had 
believed  in  the  coming  some  day  of  the  broth- 
erhood of  man,  when  the  present  unjust  and 
cruel  system  should  be  changed  into  a  new 
world  where  every  man  had  equal  opportunity 
and  equal  rights.  Russia  has  instituted  the 
first  government  of  the  toiling  masses  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  It  has  been  done  in 
the  name  of  Communism,  it  is  true.  Neverthe- 
less, the  essential  principle  seemed  almost  the 
same  as  the  things  that  I  had  been  fighting 
for,  and  this  first  government  of  the  proleta- 
riat, this  first  attempt  to  erect  a  Communist 
state  had  immediately  become  a  dictatorship, 
an  autocracy  that  was  as  cruel  and  as  unjust 
as  any  of  the  most  despotic  governments  in 


220  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

Russian  history.  Temporarily,  at  least,  Rus- 
sia had  deprived  me  of  my  faith  and  had 
taken  the  life  of  my  wife. 

I  will  never  forget  the  last  night  I  spent  in 
Keval.  On  a  bitterly  cold  night  I  walked  out- 
side the  city  limits  for  several  miles  to  the 
cemetery  where  Jessie  had  been  buried.  I 
carried  a  candle  and  matches  with  me.  I  went 
through  the  cemetery  alone,  walking  around 
the  graves  with  the  candle  in  my  hand,  until 
I  found  the  raw  cut  in  the  frozen  earth  which 
marked  her  resting-place. 

I  took  my  hat  off  and  went  down  on  my 
knees  and  prayed.  "Dear  little  Mother,  you 
are  gone,  but  I  will  work  for  you,  for  myself 
and  for  the  world.  Everywhere  I  will  try  to 
spread  the  message  of  the  tyranny  of  cruelty 
of  the  Russian  Government  that  has  taken 
your  life." 

For  a  long  time  I  stood  there,  for  it  was 
hard  for  me  to  leave  my  companion  of  so 
many  years  in  this  desolate  and  frozen  place, 
thousands  of  miles  from  our  home.  I  put  a 
little  dust  and  a  few  stones  from  the  grave 
in  my  pocket,  and  at  last,  with  a  final  fare- 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     221 

well,  I  walked  slowly  back  to  the  station. 
There  I  boarded  the  train  due  to  leave  in  a 
short  time,  and  after  a  journey  of  consider- 
able hardship,  in  which  I  had  to  stand  up  all 
night,  I  arrived  in  Germany  where  I  called 
on  Madame  Liebknecht  to  tell  her  that  the 
Communist  government  had  killed  my  wife. 

She  looked  at  me  with  tears  in  her  eyes.  I 
shall  never  forget  what  she  said.  "What  will 
happen  to  the  world  now,  for  we  can  no  longer 
believe?" 

The  next  day  I  delivered  a  lecture  at  the 
invitation  of  the  President  of  the  University 
of  Berlin.  Shortly  afterwards  one  of  the  Ger- 
man delegates  to  the  Third  International,  who 
had  questioned  me  in  Russia  about  my  opinion 
of  Bolshevism,  told  me  that  after  I  had  been 
arrested,  the  German  delegates  had  gone  to 
see  Zinoviev  to  ask  him  to  release  us,  and  that 
Zinoviev  had  told  him  that  we  had  been  sent 
out  of  Russia  and  were  on  our  way  to  the 
United  States. 

After  leaving  Germany,  I  went  through 
Belgium  and  France,  and  finally  reached  Lon- 
don, where  I  spent  two  weeks.  During  that 


222  THE    VOICE    OF    RUSSIA 

time  I  came  into  contact  with  some  of  the 
Englishmen  who  had  been  to  the  Moscow  Con- 
gress. They  were  delivering  addresses  on 
their  visit  to  Russia  and  had  challenged  any- 
one to  debate  with  them  on  the  subject,  so  I 
wired  them  that  I  would  meet  them  wherever 
they  wished,  but  though  the  telegram  was  read 
at  a  public  meeting,  I  never  heard  from  them 
again,  and  after  delivering  several  lectures 
before  Socialist  bodies,  I  left  England  and 
reached  the  United  States  in  February.  I  had 
been  gone  nine  months,  and  brief  though  that 
time  is,  to  me,  when  I  look  back  upon  it,  it 
is  an  eternity. 

In  retrospect  the  rest  of  my  life  seemed 
as  nothing  in  comparison  to  these  last  few 
months  of  my  return  to  my  native  land.  My 
wife  and  I  had  gone  there  with  the  sincerity 
of  pilgrims,  filled  with  the  great  hope  that  we 
would  find  in  Russia  the  secret  of  the  future 
happiness  of  mankind,  and  that  in  spite  of 
its  errors  we  would  see  the  beginning  of  a 
new  social  order  of  brotherhood  and  justice, 
the  Utopia  of  which  philosophers  had  dreamed 
for  centuries.  We  had  hoped  to  bring  back 


FREEDOM— THE    FINAL   SACRIFICE     223 

a  message  to  our  people  in  America  which 
would  help  in  the  furtherance  of  the  great 
aim  for  which  we  had  both  labored  for  years. 
Instead,  my  dear  wife  had  been  sacrificed 
and  I  was  left  alone,  disillusioned  and  heart- 
broken, but  with  a  feeling  of  bitterness  and 
hatred  which  will  never  leave  me.  A  great 
people,  after  incredible  sufferings,  had  torn 
itself  free  from  the  chains  of  an  age-old  des- 
potism, but  it  had  fallen  into  a  new  slavery, 
more  brutal,  more  intolerant  than  ever.  The 
knowledge  of  the  extent  of  this  last  catas- 
trophe to  the  Russian  people  is  slowly  spread- 
ing abroad,  and  I  can  only  hope  that  this  book 
will  help  the  Democracy  of  America  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  "Dictatorship  of  the 
Proletariat/'  and  that  it  will  some  day  come 
to  the  aid  of  our  brothers  on  the  other  side  of 
the  world, 


Date  Due 


A     000  631  083     3 


Library  Bureau  Cat.  No.  1137 


